Floodgates Closed: 8 in 10 Asylum Seekers Now Booted by Judges as Trump Attempts to Restore Borders

Nearly 80 percent of migrants seeking asylum in the US were sent packing in the last quarter, as immigration judges take a tougher line under the Trump administration, which has made it a priority to restore the border.

In that same span there’s been an accompanying spike in deportations. In December, there were 38,215 illegal migrants given the boot, 50% above the 19,265 in December 2023 under President Joe Biden and 35% more than the 24,979 in December 2024, according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

And the enforcement has been sustained, with more than 30,000 deportations every month since Trump took office.

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Plummeting asylum approvals mirror the rising public frustration over illegal immigration. Asylum grant rates remained at 50 percent much of 2023 — as Customs and Border Patrol reported being swamped by more than 2.4 million migrants at the Southwest border with 3.2 million so-called “encounters” nationwide.

Only when national polls showed in August 2023 that 70% of Americans disapproved of Biden’s handling of the border — and as he geared up for an ultimately disastrous run at a second term — did the number of asylum grants decline slightly. By 2024, the rate was 40%.

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Asylum decisions are made in immigration courts overseen by officials designated by the Justice Department, who collectively shape the numbers. The Trump administration has been stocking immigration courts with judges from military backgrounds. This month DOJ hired 33 new immigration judges, after hiring 36 in October.

The Pentagon has also been reassigning Judge Advocate General lawyers from the military to immigration courts for temporary assignments to address the backlog.

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One feature of the Trump administration has been an increase in speed. In April and May, completed cases hit 12,000 per month, compared to monthly completed caseloads of just 6,000 to 7,000 under Biden, according to TRAC.

Still, the backlog of asylum claims has reached a mountainous 3.38 million — and would take 14 years to process even at the current, accelerated rates.

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