The Trump administration’s latest change to the asylum system could send more migrants to deportation court, making it harder to obtain legal status.
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The Trump administration announced a change to the asylum system that could funnel hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers into deportation proceedings without an initial interview to plead their case.
The rule, which took effect on July 27, scraps the requirement for trained asylum officers to interview asylum seekers who entered the country legally or have not been charged with an immigration violation.
Now, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees a large share of asylum claims, can send those cases directly to immigration court for removal proceedings, which could lead to a surge in deportation orders.
In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS said the new rule is designed to reduce a significant backlog in the asylum system, which has an estimated 1.4 million cases pending.
“For far too long the asylum system has been exploited for purposes of delay and work authorization, not legitimate claims of protection,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a statement.
But immigration law experts criticized the new rule as an effort to boost the administration’s deportation agenda by stripping immigrants of their already limited protections while in the U.S. immigration system.
The new policy could “prevent people from having a meaningful review of their asylum claims,” and risks placing credible asylum seekers into an immigration court system that’s increasingly denying asylum claims, said Ingrid Eagly, an immigration law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“This [rule] will allow that to happen without even granting people an interview,” she told USA TODAY, highlighting the risk that asylum seekers face if they’re deported to countries they have fled for fear of persecution.
Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to limit asylum
The sudden rule change is among the latest moves through which the Trump administration has sought to transform the United States’ asylum and immigration process.
Last year, President Donald Trump shut the border to asylum seekers and suspended the refugee program before later lowering the cap on refugee admissions from 125,000 to 7,500 – the lowest level in history. He eventually raised the cap to 17,500, but those slots were only made available to Afrikaners, members of South Africa’s White minority.
In recent days, the temporary protected status of hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians expired after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed the administration to terminate the designation for both countries, stripping recipients of work authorization and protections from deportation.
Meanwhile, across the country, immigration courts have increasingly held “mega master” hearings, which cram more than 100 immigration cases into one proceeding – a tactic critics have described as a blunt tool being used to fast-track deportations.
The latest rule change is another route through which the administration is transforming the U.S. immigration system into a deportation machine, immigration law experts and former USCIS officials argue.
“This is just another way for Trump to make it almost impossible to get asylum in the U.S.,” said Ernesto Castaneda, the director of the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at American University. “It’s going to result in more people becoming undocumented and not having permission to work here.”
The Trump administration said the asylum process has been taken advantage of by people without credible claims for protections, work authorization and other benefits.
“One of the greatest barriers to effective immigration enforcement is intentional delay by illegal aliens and the open borders attorneys who represent them,” DHS General Counsel James Percival said in a statement. “My office works every day with the immigration components of DHS to improve efficiency and fulfill the President’s mandate. The rule would do just that.”
From fact-finding interviews to high-pressure court hearings
Asylum is a form of protection granted to migrants who have a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
Historically, foreign nationals who entered the country legally or were never charged with an immigration violation could apply for asylum through USCIS and enter what’s called the affirmative asylum process, which has long featured an in-person interview with one of the agency’s trained asylum officers.
These interviews are non-adversarial in nature and provided immigrants with a chance to discuss their case and clear up any discrepancies in their application. Asylum officers would then decide whether to grant asylum or refer cases to immigration court for deportation proceedings.
Under the new rule, authorities could bypass the interview process altogether and refer cases directly to immigration court, a much more challenging environment in which to win asylum.
Michael Valverde, a former USCIS top official who worked for several years in the department that oversaw asylum applications, said the affirmative asylum program was largely built around these interviews. He said officers received specialized training on how to vet applications, explore contradictions and assess the credibility of asylum seekers.
“It’s a foundational bedrock of the affirmative asylum program,” Valverde said. “This is a massive shift away from that.”
‘Every minor discrepancy is held against you’
In immigration court, asylum applicants go up against government attorneys who are seeking to get their cases denied. The proceedings are overseen by immigration judges, appointees of the executive branch, who lack the specialized training of USCIS asylum officers, experts said.
Immigration courts are experiencing a large backlog with over 3.5 million cases pending as of late April, including asylum claims referred by USCIS, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Department of Justice.
In recent months, immigration officials have turned to mass hearings to speed through the backlog, with judges seeing more than 100 cases in a single court proceeding. Meanwhile, the administration has carried out a record hiring spree of immigration judges, many of whom have no clear immigration law experience, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
Joseph Perez, an immigration attorney based in Virginia who’s represented hundreds of asylum seekers, said foreign nationals who go before an immigration court are at a significant disadvantage compared with those who can speak with a USCIS asylum officer.
“If you get to court and there’s a minor deviation in your paperwork, your case will be denied,” he said. “If this occurs in an asylum office, it can be worked out or explained. But in court, every minor discrepancy is held against you.”
The funneling of cases to immigration court also raises the risk that asylum seekers could be detained for weeks or months as they wait for their case to be heard.
Under the Trump administration, detained migrants have been moved to several facilities before appearing before a judge, making it difficult for foreign nationals to manage their case, especially without a lawyer.
Asylum seekers who are detained and can’t afford legal representation face what some immigration lawyers described as a “nearly impossible” challenge, as they seek a path to citizenship.
“It’s just about hopeless for them,” Perez said.
Asylum system faces a crisis. There’s disagreement over how to fix it.
Immigration law experts said there’s a legitimate need to reduce the backlog of asylum cases. The average wait time for asylum cases is an estimated four to seven years, according to the Migration Policy Institute, with some experts saying they’ve seen cases run longer than that.
The immigration court backlog more than doubled from fiscal 2021 to 2024, reaching 3.8 million cases amid record border arrivals and mass asylum filings largely under the Biden administration, according to the institute.
“The backlog is undeniable,” said Castaneda, the American University professor.
Several experts said the rule change, if implemented judiciously, could alleviate the backlog without leading to a surge in detentions or denials of valid asylum claims.
Perez, the immigration attorney based in Virginia, said there’s many cases in which there’s clear evidence that someone does not meet the standard for asylum, such as those involving people convicted of serious crimes.
But, he added, implementing the rule beyond those cases and doing so without the advice of trained asylum officers could punish law-abiding asylum seekers who’ve worked for years to gain a path toward citizenship.
For asylum seekers, the risks are immense.
On July 28, authorities in Guatemala said a man deported from the U.S. and his wife, who’d self-deported, were found dead in a sugarcane field with their hands tied behind their backs. The couple’s infant daughter was found alive beside them, authorities said.
The wife, Glendy Marisol Gonzalez, had an active asylum case with a hearing scheduled for next year, according to the Missouri Workers Center, a group of which the couple were members.
Christopher Cann is a national reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him by email at ccann@usatoday.com.