Last week, President Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 19 different countries. Here, we’ll look at the effects of the ban, with a particular focus on asylum seekers and asylees.
Recently, there have been numerous reports about ICE appearing in Immigration Courts across the United States and detaining people at their hearings. It’s another way the Trump Administration is terrorizing non-citizens and trying to intimidate them into giving up their due process rights.
Here, we will look at what is happening, who is at risk, and what you can do to try to protect yourself.
The latest data from our nation’s Immigration Courts reveals that judges are deciding more asylum cases than ever–and that denial rates are increasing.
The most recent numbers are from March 2025, and show that Immigration Judges adjudicated 10,933 asylum applications, which is the most cases ever decided in a single month. Of those, 76% were denied–another record.
Here, we’ll examine the data and see if we can learn more about what’s going on.
Asylum Offices around the country have become very busy. Oldest and newest cases, cases that were previously before the Immigration Court, and sometimes seemingly random cases are being scheduled for interviews. Often times, there is little advanced notice prior to the interview date. This means that applicants do not always have enough time to gather and submit their evidence, which is usually due at least a week before the interview.
Since it is not possible to know when you might be scheduled for an interview, or how much advanced notice you will have before the interview, the best approach is to gather your evidence now, so you are ready to go when the time comes.
A new Memo from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts) allows Immigration Judges to “pretermit” (deny) asylum cases without a hearing if the applicant has failed to state a claim for protection. What does this mean? And how can asylum seekers in court protect themselves from having their applications pretermitted?
This post is by Shelby Negosian, a third year student at Washington University in St. Louis, who is studying Environmental Analysis with a double minor in Legal Studies and Geospatial Science. She is interested in environmental tort law, and has a particular interest in environmental justice and immigration.
The intersections between environmental and immigration law are perhaps not immediately apparent, but these intersections are real and ever more prominent under the Trump Administration.
The number of internally and externally displaced people has been increasing exponentially. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found that there were over 117 million displaced people in 2023. In a single decade, the number of refugees tripled from 11 million in 2013 to 37 million in 2023, and is only expected to increase due to climate change. While climate change–through disaster, hunger, and conflict–is forcibly displacing people, legal systems are not keeping up.
Since he entered politics, our President has denigrated asylum seekers as fraudsters who game the system in an effort to harm hard-working Americans.
Having practiced in this area for more than two decades, my observation is that most asylum seekers have legitimate claims, and in many cases, there is indisputable evidence about the risks they face. That’s not to say that people don’t sometimes exaggerate or even make things up–many asylum seekers come from countries where lying to their governments is necessary for survival–but at least in the cases I have seen, the large majority of applicants have legitimate claims for protection.
But there is another type of fraud in the asylum system. This fraud is more pervasive and more dangerous because it points to wider problems within our government. I am speaking here about the fraud perpetrated by the Asylum Office itself.
The Trump Administration has been targeting pro-Palestinian activists under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which provides, “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” See INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(1). Under this section, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, can basically designate any non-citizen for deportation.
Until recently, this provision was rarely used, but now, the Trump Administration seems intent on labeling hundreds of non-citizens–mostly students who have expressed opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza–as people whose presence in the U.S. has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” thus rendering them deportable.
Here, we’ll discuss INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(1) and some policy implications of its widespread use.
Late last Friday evening, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order targeting lawyers–and specifically immigration lawyers–who “engage in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct.” The order is part of a broader push by the Administration to target law firms that stand in the way of its agenda, and is aimed at intimidating attorneys and preventing us from doing our jobs.
What effect will this EO have on the legal profession, and how will it affect immigrants and asylum seekers?
By now, you’ve probably heard that the Trump Administration is not a fan of immigrants. They have been making changes to detain and deport more non-citizens, more quickly, and with fewer due process protections. To that end, the Administration is pressuring Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges to adjudicate more cases. These civil servants are already stretched thin, and so the additional work is likely to reduce decision quality, as well as damage morale. It will also make litigating cases more difficult for asylum seekers and other non-citizens, as they will have less time to present their cases, and–most probably–less time to prepare.
The Trump Administration has started sending some migrants to third countries. There is little transparency around these operations, but so far, the deportees seem to be people who arrived recently at the Southern border. Regardless of their nationality or potential fear of persecution, the U.S. government is sending some migrants to third countries, such as Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. In most cases, the returned migrants are then sent back to their home country, but in some cases, the third countries seem willing to hold (and perhaps detain) deported migrants, at least for a while.
Could the Administration apply this same strategy to people who have been granted Withholding of Removal (WOR) or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) ?
Last week, 13 of 28 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) were purged. Those targeted include appellate judges appointed by the Biden Administration, some of whom were still on probation (BIA judges have a two-year probationary period) and others who had completed their probation. The firings, which go into effect next month, seem not to have complied with proper legal procedures, and are likely to be challenged in court by at least some of the terminated judges.
Having talked with people on the inside, this mass firing sounds like it is only the beginning. I’m told that the Trump Administration plans to radically re-make the Immigration Court system in order to dramatically reduce due process protections for non-citizens.
Donald Trump arrived in office with a pledge to deport “millions” of criminal non-citizens. Even at the time he made these claims, the President’s plans seemed unrealistic. But now that he is in office, and rhetoric must contend with reality, it appears that the new Administration is falling short of its goals–at least for the time being.
In the waning days of the Biden Administration, DHS extended Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for Venezuelans until October 2026. Last week, the Trump Administration rescinded that decision. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela are set to lose status over the next several months.
For Venezuelans–and people from other countries who may lose TPS–what are the options? (more…)
There are probably 4+ million asylum seekers in the United States. These are people who filed an application for asylum, form I-589, with the USCIS Asylum Office or with the Immigration Court, and their dependents. Under the new Trump Administration, are such people safe from detention and deportation by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)?