New federal rule upends path to asylum

Administration scraps interview requirement

By: Christopher Cann
USA Today

..... The Trump administration announced a change to the asylum system that could funnel hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers into deportation proceeding without an initial interview to plead their case.
..... The rule, which took effect July 27, [2026] scraps the requirement for trained asylum officers to interview asylum-seekers who entered the country legally and have not been charged with any 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, immigration experts say.
..... In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and USCIA 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 authorization, not legitimate claims of protection," USCIA 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 immigrant of there already limited protections while in the U.S. immigration system.
..... The new policy risks placing credible asylum-seekers into an immigration court system that's increasingly denying their 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.
..... The sudden rule change is among the latest moves through which the Trump administration has sought to transform the U.S. asylum and immigration process.
..... Last year, [2025[ President Donald Trump shut the border to asylum-seekers and suspended the refugee program before later lowering the cap on refugee administrations from 125,000 to 7,500 - the lowest level in history. He eventually raised the cap to 17,500 but those slots were only available to Afrikaneres, 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 decisions hat allowed the administration to terminate the designation for both countries, stripping recipients of work authorization and protections form deportation.
..... "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.
..... The Trump administration said the asylum process has been taken advantage of by people without eradicable claims for protections, work authorization and other benefits.
..... "My office works every day with the immigration components of DHS to improve efficient and fulfill the President's mandate. The rule would do just that," DHS General Counsel James Percival said in a statement.
..... 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 particulate 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 USCIA 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 offices.
..... These interviews provided immigrates with a chance to discuss their case and clear up discreetness's in there 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 officer received specialized training on how to vet application, explore contradictions and assess he credibility of asylum-seekers.
..... In immigration court, asylum applicants go up against government attorneys who are seeking to get their cases denied. The proceedings are overseen by mitigation judges, appointees of the executive branch, who lack the specialized training of USCIS asylum officers, experts said.
..... 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.
..... Immigration courts are experiencing a large backlog with over 3.5 million cases pending as of late April, [2026] including asylum claims referred by USCIA, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Department of Justice.
..... The average at 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.
..... Asylum-seekers who are detained and can't afford legal representation face what some immigration lawyers and law experts described as a "nearly impossible" challenge as they seek a path to citizenship.
..... Meanwhile, to speed though the backlog, 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 toll being sued to fast-track deportations.
..... For asylum-seekers, there risks are immense.
..... On July 28, [2026] authorities in Guatemala said a man deported from the United States and his wife, who had self-deported, were found dead in a sugarcane filed 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, [2027] according to the Missouri Workers Center, a group of which the couple were members.

HOME