During the presidency of Joe Biden, a staggering 1,6 million individuals who crossed the frontier into the United States are currently awaiting the outcome of their asylum applications. Data from the federal government casts doubt on the preponderance of these claims.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), led by Andrew Arthur, has presented illuminating statistics regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) comprehensive catch-and-release strategy under the leadership of Vice President Joe Biden. This strategy calls for the monthly release of tens of thousands of border crossers, the majority of whom present dubious asylum claims, into the center of the United States.
As of March, the United States is dealing with over 1,6 million border crossers awaiting the outcome of their asylum claims. This staggering number exceeds the population of eleven individual U.S. states, placing a substantial burden on adjudicators and highlighting the damage caused to the asylum system by the Biden administration’s strategy, which they are eager to downplay.
According to Andrew Arthur, “Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has released nearly every alien [Customs and Border Patrol] has encountered at the southwest border.” In some instances, the procedure of reviewing asylum requests from these border crossers can take a decade.
Elizabeth Jacobs, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy at CIS, has brought to light the fact that the 1.6 million individuals with pending asylum claims represent an all-time high, a “16-fold increase from Fiscal Year 2012, when the U.S. government reported just 100,000 pending cases.”
A recurring pattern had been previously revealed in which a significant proportion of border-crossers released loose within the interior of the United States ultimately have their asylum claims rejected. This trend, which is supported by years of data, consistently produces similar outcomes.
For example, in Fiscal Year 2022, 52% of claims were deemed to be without merit. In Fiscal Year 2021, sixty percent of asylum seekers were denied, whereas in Fiscal Year 2020, the rate of denial increased to seventy percent.