Asylum approvals plummet as fearful immigrants skip hearings

WASHINGTON— A year into the Trump administration’s expedited mass deportation efforts, approval rates for asylum seekers have plummeted as immigrants fear showing up for court hearings.

Less than 3% of asylum cases adjudicated in January were approved, according to Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco nonprofit that analyzes federal immigration data; This is a record low figure. This compares with an approval rating of 18% in January 2025.

While 20 percent of immigrants seeking asylum nationally missed their hearings in January, that rate dropped by half a year ago. Asylum seekers whose applications are waiting are legally present in the country, but federal lawFailure to appear at the hearing may result in a deportation order.

In Los Angeles County immigration courts, among the largest in the country, the trend is even starker: 56 percent of asylum hearings in January were no-shows, compared with 14 percent a year ago.

“This is not a surge,” said Bartlomiej Skorupa, chief operating officer of Mobile Pathways. “This is a collapse.”

A Justice Department spokesman said the Trump administration is restoring the integrity of immigration courts.

As of December, nearly 3.4 million cases were pending in immigration courts, more than 2.3 million of which were asylum cases. According to TRACa data research organization.

The increase in the number of people avoiding asylum hearings helps explain another trend in the immigration court system. The number of asylum cases marked as “abandoned” doubled last year.

Immigration lawyers say cases can be classified as abandoned for a variety of reasons: The applicant missed a deadline, filled out the form incorrectly or decided to leave the United States.

However, the Administrative Office of Immigration Review, the agency that administers immigration courts, can label the case as abandoned if the applicant fails to appear for the hearing. Nationwide, the number of cases deemed abandoned doubled last year, accounting for nearly 41% of cases resolved in January.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, it takes an average of four years for immigrants to receive an asylum hearing; However, due to objections, the final decision may take longer.

During the Biden administration, most asylum requests were not adjudicated by immigration judges; instead, many were administratively closed or suspended, and judges were removed from prisons. As long as the case is not active, the person can remain in the United States, work legally, and pursue other avenues of assistance.

But experts at the Migration Policy Institute say such a policy is vulnerable to reversal by a later administration. He wrote in his November report.

Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, said the increase in no-shows was due in part to the Trump administration’s move to reopen asylum cases that had been administratively closed for many years.

Many of these people are no longer in contact with their lawyers, if they had lawyers, and it will be difficult to notify them of a new trial.

A decade ago, a significant portion of refugees came from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, and most of them settled in Southern California.

Since President Trump returned to the White House, Los Angeles was one of the first cities where federal agents began detaining immigrants in courthouses. Toczylowski said immigrants are afraid to contact law enforcement.

He said the government’s goal is deportation orders, “not to ensure due process or justice for people in immigration courts. If people don’t show up to court, this is a way for them to meet their own criteria.”

Immigration courts are housed within the Department of Justice, and judges have long complained that they lack full independence from excessive interference by the executive branch. The ministry disputes this, saying judges are independent arbitrators who decide cases on an individual basis.

More than 100 immigration judges have been fired since Trump took office, and about the same number have either resigned or retired, according to the union that represents immigration judges. this down 735 judges in the last financial year.

Last summer, the Pentagon authorized up to 600 military lawyers to work at the Justice Department after eliminating the requirement that temporary immigration judges have immigration law experience.

Jeremiah Johnson, a former immigration judge who was fired from San Francisco Immigration Court last year, said January’s 3% asylum rate was shockingly low.

Johnson, who is vice president of the National Assn. Immigration judges say the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decisions over the past few months have limited asylum law. Immigration judges must follow the precedents set in these cases.

For example, such a situation reverses previous interpretations so far Limit asylum based on genderIt found that allegations of persecution based solely on gender or a combination of gender and nationality generally did not meet the definition of a “particular social group,” one of five categories under U.S. asylum law.

Another factor contributing to the decline in asylum approvals, he said, is that the federal government has begun denying asylum cases to immigrants by forcing them to start over in a “safe third country.”

These demands stem from a growing number of so-called asylum cooperation agreements that allow federal officials to send certain immigrants to other countries, including less stable destinations like Honduras, Uganda and Ecuador, rather than continuing to seek asylum in the United States.

“This has really been a restriction on access to asylum and other related protection,” he said.

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, co-author of the Migration Policy Institute report, pointed out a post about X last month. By White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen MillerAsylum, he said, “is limited to individuals fleeing extremely narrow categories of state persecution.”

“None of the groups crossing the border illegally fit these criteria,” Miller wrote. “No one in Mexico or Ecuador or Honduras, etc., lives in countries where there is state persecution of any protected class.”

But Bush-Joseph cautioned that it is not yet clear whether the Trump administration’s asylum changes are legal.

“Although there are administrative measures restricting access to asylum, these are being challenged in court and I don’t think we know how all of this will play out,” he said. “Meanwhile, many people are being deported and may not have a chance to return.”