Trump Administration Denied More Asylum Cases in March Than Any Other Single Month In Almost 25 Years: Report

More asylum cases were denied in March than any other single month since at least 2001 as the Trump administration continues its efforts to crack down on immigration.

According to Austin Kocher, a professor at Syracuse University who covers immigration enforcement in the U.S., immigration judges made decisions on 10,933 asylum cases in March. More than three quarters of them (76%) were denied, the highest rate on record for any month in more than two decades.

By comparison, before this month, the previous high for total asylum case completions was 10,458 in February 2020, and the highest denial rate before this administration was 74% in January 2019. Just six months ago, in September 2024 under the Biden administration, the denial rate was 62%.

The immigration scholar explained that although this is not the first time a surge in denials occur, the current levels are unprecedented given the high percentage of decisions and the massive volume of cases decided in a single month. For instance, in 2019, denial rates hovered around 68-70%, getting to 74% in January of that year, but monthly completions stayed mostly below 9,000.

"Between explicit policy changes and implicit threats to get in line or get fired, judges on the whole seem to be following orders to deny, deny, deny. These changes have happened with breathtaking speed, too, since these data only reflect the first two full months (February and March) of the Trump administration. In short, Trump has already turned the ship of the immigration courts in his first 100 days," Kocher wrote.

The surge in asylum denials comes after the Trump administration urged judges in early April to swiftly deny asylum to migrants whose applications they deem unlikely to succeed. The guidance, which was issued by the Justice Department, took effect April 11, and it stated that judges should consider dropping "legally deficient" asylum cases without holding a hearing, as the law states.

The directive would keep some people who claim to be fleeing persecution in their home countries from having any opportunity to present their case to a judge, The New York Times reported.

"Adjudicators have the duty to efficiently manage their dockets," Sirce Owen, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration courts, wrote in the policy memo. "It is clear from the almost four million pending cases on E.O.I.R.'s docket that has not been happening."

The administration has not been shy to bypass immigration law to enact what they have promised will be the largest "deportation operation in American history." Most notably, the President invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act back in February to quickly deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants it claimed were gang members to a mega-prison in El Salvador, effectively stripping them of due process.

The move has been heavily criticized by immigration advocates, who have denounced the administration's move to seemingly ignore courts, and argued it could lead to similar erosion for lawful permanent residents and U.S. citizens.

"This is a slippery slope towards sending residents of the country... to a place where the U.S. courts have no reach," Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, told NPR. "That's the heart of the matter."