How the Trump Administration Devastated the U.S. Asylum System

Since President Trump’s second term began, seeking asylum in the U.S. has become nearly impossible. From preventing access to asylum at borders to mandatory detention, the Trump administration has created a hostile environment for anyone searching for safety.

Decades ago, the U.S. created an asylum system to help people who lives were in danger. Based on the 1951 Refugee Convention, asylum law in the U.S. allows someone to receive protection who is physically present in the country or has come to a port of entry and is being persecuted because of their race, religion nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Yet, in less than two years, the Trump administration has pursued a concerted strategy to restrict immigration policy to the point where the right to asylum hangs on by a thread. Read on to learn more about the biggest changes to asylum and how HIAS is fighting back.

Preventing asylum at borders

Border Closure: Shortly after the new administration was sworn in, President Trump issued an executive order effectively shutting down the border to asylum seekers and ensuring that those seeking safety in the U.S. would be turned away, no matter the danger. The administration claimed it was for national security despite multiple reports debunking claims that welcoming immigrants somehow made the country less safe.

Preventing asylum before an asylum officer

New asylum rule eliminating interview with an asylum officer: Recently, USCIS issued a new rule which removes the guarantee that asylum applicants will be afforded an interview with an asylum officer before their claims are referred to immigration court for removal proceedings. HIAS and our partners have filed a lawsuit against the potentially devastating rule restricting access to asylum.

Asylum application fees: Congressional Republicans passed a bill last summer that, for the first time, imposed fees for asylum applications, added a fee for work-authorization applications, and created a fee for each year an asylum application remains pending. This places more financial pressure on asylum seekers who now must pay the initial fee, when many likely will not have legal permission to work in the U.S. It also charges an annual fee, essentially punishing them for the government’s delay in adjudicating their case.

Preventing asylum before an immigration judge

Pretermissions: Asylum case dismissal without a full hearing: Pretermission lets an immigration judge dismiss an asylum case without a full evidentiary hearing, making a decision based on paper evidence rather than letting the asylum seeker testify. This echoes the new rule eliminating an interview with an asylum officer. In April 2025, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) issued a policy memorandum outlining how judges may reject an asylum application as “legally incomplete or insufficient” without a hearing. Many asylum seekers are now having their proceedings summarily ended based on procedural grounds like incomplete forms or third-country agreements, rather than the merits of their case and their fear of persecution. Once a case is pretermitted, the asylum application is denied and the person can be detained and deported, permanently losing their one chance to tell their story in court.

Courthouse arrests and expedited removal: The Trump administration has significantly expanded expedited removal beyond the border into the interior of the country. Additionally, immigration courts lifted a previous ban on ICE enforcement on their property. Last summer, the result was ICE officers waiting outside immigration court rooms to arrest people. Commonly, courts dismissed mostly pending asylum cases for applicants with no criminal history. For many, this meant their claims for why they feared returning to their home countries were never heard. The result was many people were too afraid to attend their immigration court hearing, which put them at risk of receiving an order of deportation in their absence.

Politicization of immigration judges: The Trump administration has also terminated or pushed out an unprecedented number of established immigration judges and replaced them with legions of new judges who are being trained and pressured to deny asylum applications.

Mandatory detention and inhumane detention center conditions: Many asylum seekers in ICE detention centers are now often facing life-threatening conditions. Over 50 people have died in ICE detention since the beginning of the administration. At family detention centers, attorneys have sounded the alarm as their clients facing hunger, exhaustion, illness, and mental health crises from the conditions of confinement. Beyond the physical toll, people have reported torturous conditions, enforced isolation, neglect of people with disabilities, lack of access to medical care, and denial of access to counsel.

The combination of prolonged detention and new restrictive bond policies is pushing many asylum seekers to abandon claims they might otherwise have won. Prolonged detention has become more common because a new policy generally prohibits immigration judges from releasing detainees while their cases wind through the backlogged courts, leaving people jailed indefinitely with no clear end date. This dynamic is by design, not accident: asylum-seekers with no criminal records are increasingly detained. The result is a system where the length and severity of detention, rather than the merits of a person’s fear of persecution, can determine whether they pursue or relinquish a legitimate asylum claim.

Third country removals: “Third-country deportation” and “third-country removals” describe cases where the government sends someone to a country they are not from and to which they have no ties. Historically, the U.S. government has rarely used third-country deportations, and when it has, these were typically driven by individual case circumstances rather than a broad policy. That’s changed under the second Trump administration, where third-country removals have become central to an aggressive deportation strategy, particularly for people who can’t legally be sent back to their home countries because they’ve already demonstrated a likelihood of persecution there. The administration has leaned on this tool for two purposes: to expand removals of people otherwise protected from deportation to their home countries, and as a pressure tactic, using the threat of removal to countries like El Salvador and South Sudan to intimidate immigrants into abandoning their cases rather than continuing to fight to stay in the U.S.

How to fight for the right to seek asylum in the United States

All these attacks on the right to seek asylum in the U.S. represent legal and psychological obstacles. Some are designed to prevent people like asylum officers and judges from granting asylum. Others are designed to force asylum seekers to give up and accept that suffering in their home country may be better than suffering in a cell in the U.S.

But we can fight back against these attacks on a fundamental human right. HIAS has fought for refugees and immigrants for over 140 years, and we will not back down now. Join us by taking action to support our immigrant neighbors and protect the right to asylum.