What percentage of applicants are granted asylum in the U.S.?
Critical Analysis
Find answers to the following questions using the visual above, any links below, your big brain, and your knowledge of American government and politics:
Asylum is a form of legal protection granted by a country to foreign nationals fleeing persecution in their home country due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group. It serves as a safe haven/sanctuary and allows individuals to live and work legally in the host nation. According to the visual above, what American president had the highest average grant rate for asylum seekers?
U.S. asylum law provides protection to foreign nationals already in the U.S. or at a port of entry who meet the "refugee" definition: unable to return home due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Applicants must file Form I-589 within one year of arrival. According to the visual above, what is the current average grant rate for asylum seekers?
Based on the visual above, describe the trend in average grant rate for asylum seekers since 2008.
Although they wear robes and are required by law to exercise “independent judgment,” immigration judges are not part of the judicial branch. Instead they work for the Justice Department, under Mr. Trump’s ultimate command, and can be fired. One of their main duties is deciding whether undocumented immigrants should be deported or granted a form of legal status like asylum and be allowed to remain in the country. How do you think that James Madison - whose Federalist No. 51 outlines the reason for separation of powers - would feel about immigration judges being par tof the executive branch?
So far, the Trump administration has dismissed more than 100 immigration judges out of about 750 in place when Mr. Trump returned to power, an unprecedented purge. At the same time, the administration has reshaped the immigration bench, announcing the appointments of 143 permanent and temporary judges, including many who previously worked as immigration prosecutors for the Department of Homeland Security or as military lawyers. By many measures, the administration is achieving its goals. The number of people being ordered deported has risen sharply, while judges have approved asylum claims at the lowest rate for which data is available. How does this illustrate the concept of checks and balances?
Based on recent data (FY2023-2024), the top countries granted asylum in the U.S. include Venezuela, China, Russia, Afghanistan, and various Central American nations. The effort to fire more lenient immigration judges has been carried out by Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser who believes that many undocumented immigrants should no longer receive a constitutional right of due process as they seek legal status. “The only process invaders are due is deportation,” Mr. Miller wrote on X last year. But the constitution does not only apply to citizens, but to all people in the United States. Do you think that people who come to the U.S. seeking asylum are invaders who should be deported?
During Mr. Trump’s second term, White House and Justice Department officials have carefully monitored judges’ rulings, examining statistics showing how often they have granted asylum, according to two federal government employees with knowledge of the activity who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The administration has instructed judges to stop granting bond to immigrants who crossed the border illegally, a change from decades of practice. The new policy has required people to remain in detention for extended periods even if they do not have a criminal record and have lived in the country for years. If you were a judge, would you jail a person appearing before you who had never committed a crime, had lived in the U.S. for decades, but had originally crossed the border illegally?
According to the visual below*, how has immigration enforcement changed since Trump returned to office?
Under the Refugee Act of 1980, judges can grant asylum only to those fleeing persecution on account of religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in “a particular social group.” But many migrants today are fleeing situations that may not qualify them for asylum, such as poverty, climate change and gang or cartel violence. They have few other legal pathways to seek status in the United States. Imagine you were tasked with rewriting the Refugee Act of 2026. Under what circumstances would you grant asylum?
Shahrokh Rahimi, 53, has spent the last nine months in immigration detention in Texas under Mr. Trump’s new mandatory detention policy. Mr. Rahimi entered the country illegally in 2003. In 2010, an immigration judge ordered him deported, but also prohibited the government from sending him back to his native Iran, saying he would be tortured or persecuted there. He was allowed to live in the United States under supervised release, if he checked in regularly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and stayed out of trouble. He is married to a U.S. citizen, has a 12-year-old American-born daughter and does not have a criminal record beyond a speeding ticket, court filings show. But during Mr. Trump’s enforcement crackdown last summer, ICE revoked Mr. Rahimi’s release and arrested him. An immigration judge denied him bond. If he wants to continue his fight for legal status in the United States, he could spend months or even years in immigration detention — a prospect that has convinced many others in his position to give up. Mr. Rahimi is not ready to make that choice, and not just because he fears imprisonment or worse in Iran. “My wife is from here,” Mr. Rahimi said. “My daughter has a future in this country.” If yo were Mr. Rahimi would you stay in detention to fight your deportation or would you go back to Iran?
Write and Discuss
Take ten minutes to write about the question at the top of the page and then discuss with your classmates.
Act on your Learning
Contact the White House and respectfully and clearly let them know what you think of their asylum policy.
Get Creative
Read the following then write a letter to Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé
A few years ago, Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé reconnected with a man named Bill Ross, whom she had met when she was a young secretary and he was stationed in France for the U.S. military. Both widowed and in their 80s, the two fell in love, and last year she moved more than 4,000 miles to Anniston, Ala., to marry him. But the continent-spanning love story soured in January after Mr. Ross died, setting off an ugly inheritance battle between his two sons and Ms. Ross-Mahé, 85. This month, immigration agents arrested her in her nightgown at her late husband’s home — and a county probate judge overseeing his estate said that one of his sons was responsible for the arrest. Ms. Ross-Mahé is now in a detention center hundreds of miles away in Louisiana, her own three children back in France unable to reach her and fearing for her health. The Calhoun County probate judge, Shirley A. Millwood, a Republican elected in 2024, in a Friday ruling urged the federal government to investigate, “especially in light of the ongoing national events surrounding the distrust of federal law enforcement officers and the many investigations ongoing of corruption within our government.” In her ruling, she appointed an independent administrator for Mr. Ross’s estate and temporarily ordered his sons to give up their keys to their father’s home. The ruling has not been previously reported. Judge Millwood wrote in her ruling that she believed that Mr. Ross’s younger son, Tony Ross, who she said was a retired Alabama state trooper now working at a federal courthouse in Anniston, had used his position as a government employee to have Ms. Ross-Mahé arrested.
The son testified in probate court that he had not asked co-workers to have Ms. Ross-Mahé arrested. But, Judge Millwood wrote, law enforcement officers told Tony Ross a day before Ms. Ross-Mahé’s arrest that she would be detained, and he also received a text confirming the arrest less than an hour after it happened. Two hours after her arrest, the judge wrote, Mr. Ross’s other son, Gary, went to their father’s house and changed the locks. Judge Millwood directed that copies of her ruling be sent to the presiding federal judge in Anniston, as well as to the top U.S. marshal for the region, possibly in an effort to prompt an investigation into the sons’ behavior. Mr. Ross’s sons, who are in their 50s, did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did their lawyer in the inheritance case. Ms. Ross-Mahé said in a court filing before her arrest that she had been trying to gain American citizenship. The Homeland Security Department said in an unsigned statement only that Ms. Mahé had overstayed a 90-day visa by roughly four months and was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
One of Ms. Ross-Mahé’s sons said his mother first became acquainted with Mr. Ross in the late 1950s while working at a military base in western France. Mr. Ross later married one of her friends, returning to the United States with her and beginning a life in Alabama. Ms. Ross-Mahé married, too, and had three children, but many decades later, after both of their spouses died, the long-lost friends struck up a long-distance romance. She visited Alabama, and he visited the Nantes area where she lived, meeting her family. The children found it slightly awkward that their mother had fallen in love again so quickly, but they were glad that she was finding a second youth, said her son, who asked not to be identified out of fear of affecting his mother’s case. And so Ms. Ross-Mahé gave up her life in western France — and her pension — to live in Anniston, a city of about 21,000 people not far from the Talladega racecar track. The couple married civilly in April 2025 and had a religious ceremony that summer, which her children watched online from France. The house Mr. Ross had owned for nearly 50 years became home base, with its backyard pool, brick exterior and manicured lawn. The pair explored parks, drove to Florida and had plans to visit Louisiana, too, Ms. Ross-Mahé’s son said. But on Jan. 24, Mr. Ross died unexpectedly of natural causes at 85. The dispute over his possessions — the one-story home worth about $173,000, as well as two cars and a bank account holding about $1,500 — began shortly after. In Alabama, probate judges oversee many administrative matters, including wills, and Judge Millwood is handling the inheritance dispute because Mr. Ross did not leave one. Under Alabama’s inheritance laws for people who die without a will, Ms. Ross-Mahé would be entitled to half of Mr. Ross’s estate, and his children would split the other half. But Tony Ross testified that Ms. Ross-Mahé had said, while she was married to his father, that if he died, she did not want anything of his but would need to be able to fly back to France. After his death, the sons sent Ms. Mahé an offer of $10,000 if she waived her right to any inheritance. Ms. Ross-Mahé and the judge described more aggressive approaches. The day after Mr. Ross died, his sons came to the house and each drove off with one of his vehicles, a truck and a 2018 Mercedes-Benz, according to Judge Millwood. Mr. Ross’s sons denied removing other pieces of property and countered that Ms. Mahé had “removed, concealed or disposed” of certain assets herself. They also said she had told them she did not want certain things in the house — guns and Mr. Ross’s dog — but had later claimed that the sons had taken them unfairly.
Ms. Ross-Mahé said in a court filing last month that the older of Mr. Ross’s sons, Gary Ross, had rerouted all mail sent to his father’s home, which caused her to miss an appointment with immigration officials. Because of her citizenship status, Ms. Ross-Mahé said, she was not on her husband’s checking account and did not have access to money to pay for food, clothing or utilities. Her son said the internet, utilities and cable had been turned off at the home. On March 30, Judge Millwood issued an order temporarily prohibiting all of Mr. Ross’s family members from selling or giving away any of his assets. Two days later, on April 1, ICE agents came to the home on quiet Gann Drive and arrested Ms. Ross-Mahé, dressed only in her nightgown, robe and underwear, according to a neighbor’s account filed in court. Her son said he had been unable to contact his mother since her arrest, because the detention center where she is held does not accept international phone calls. Instead, she has been communicating through her neighbors in Anniston, who have rallied around her cause. The French consulate has also been working to free her. According to Ms. Ross-Mahé’s son, she has told her neighbors that other people being held at the detention center have been taking care of her, offering her covers at night and calling her “Unsinkable Molly” after Margaret Brown, a survivor of the Titanic.
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