Yearning to breathe free

The unknown number on Adam’s caller ID was the first sign of trouble. The menacing voice that greeted him was the other. It was early 2020, and Adam was working at a small college in Afghanistan. The caller identified himself as a member of the Taliban and demanded Adam expel all the school’s female students. The terror group hadn’t yet taken over the country, so Adam refused.

“I was scared,” he said. “But I didn’t think they would come to the university and try to kill me.”

WORLD agreed to use a pseudonym to protect Adam and his family. Shortly after their warning, Taliban members paid the college a visit. “They wanted to kill all the girls,” Adam told me. The terrorists didn’t succeed at hurting the female students or Adam, but they did shoot and kill a college security guard. Adam said their next warning was much more ominous.

“You didn’t listen to us,” they said. “The next attack will be you.”

Not long after that call, Adam was driving back home from the college when two Taliban fighters on a motorcycle stopped in front of his car. They shot him twice in his left hand and once in the left leg. Fearing the next attack, the family fled to another province. But in August 2021, the terrorist group overthrew the Afghan government and took over the country. Adam and his family left Afghanistan with the goal of seeking asylum in the United States.

They eventually made their way to a refugee camp in Brazil and trekked through Central America to Mexico, where they requested an appointment at the U.S.-Mexico border. Two and a half months later, officials allowed them to enter the country under a temporary status called parole.

Adam was one of millions of immigrants who entered the country under former President Joe Biden’s watch. An average of more than 2 million crossed into the United States per year between 2021 and 2024 for a total of about 8 million—the most ever in U.S. history. Many of them intended to claim asylum.

But many of those asylum-seekers—some experts estimate at least half—weren’t really seeking asylum. They were in search of “a better life,” as James Blaise, the immigration lawyer representing Adam, puts it—and they came at the expense of those sincerely claiming asylum in order to stay alive. The mounting backlog of cases means asylum-seekers like Adam could be living in legal limbo for years.

Or, to put it another way, economic migrants broke America’s asylum system. With border crossings on pause for now, immigration experts are debating whether the idea of asylum is salvageable. Some argue it’s time to end a system that’s proven unsustainable. But advocates maintain that it is through the asylum system that Lady Liberty stretches out her arms to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Though desperately in need of reform, they argue, the program safeguards vulnerable immigrants, especially those who are targets of religious persecution.

Haitian migrants, who had been seeking asylum in the United States, stay at a makeshift camp in Mexico. Paul Ratje / AFP via Getty Images

THE U.S. ASYLUM SYSTEM took shape in the late 20th century as the United Nations scrambled to assist the tens of millions of people still displaced across Europe in the chaotic aftermath of World War II. The UN created an international definition for refugees in 1951, and in 1967 it applied that definition to all future refugees, not just victims of WWII or the Cold War.

In 1980, Congress altered U.S. immigration law to comply with the UN refugee framework. The Refugee Act of 1980 also laid the groundwork for the current asylum system. Refugees and asylum-seekers must meet the same standard for targeted persecution based on five categories: race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or social group. But officials vet and approve refugees before they arrive, while asylum-seekers begin the process once they step onto U.S. soil and request protection. There’s also no limit to the number of asylum cases officials can approve, unlike refugee resettlement applicants, who can’t exceed the president’s yearly cap.

U.S. asylum numbers originally fell far below the country’s refugee tally, but the yearly caseload climbed steadily, eventually outpacing refugee approvals. Immigrants filed 19,448 asylum cases in 2010. That number grew to 361,320 in 2019. But by 2023 applications exploded to 945,370, the highest tally on record.

Global conflicts and record numbers of displaced people worldwide accounted for a portion of the year-over-year increase. But dysfunction throughout other components of the U.S. immigration system has also played a role, according to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney and policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute. The U.S. immigration system hasn’t undergone meaningful reform since the 1990s, and lengthening employment-based visa backlogs have blurred the lines between the employment-based immigration system and asylum.

Today, asylum cases typically move at a snail’s pace. Asylum-seekers can request a work permit 180 days after they arrive, and due to court backlogs, applicants can work for years before officials decide their cases. “The asylum system is increasingly functioning as a new proxy for labor migration in the United States,” Bush-Joseph wrote in a recent report.

But Mark Krikorian, a researcher and former executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said it’s not just ballooning backlogs fueling the system’s dysfunction. He insists the system had serious sovereignty concerns from the beginning. U.S. law requires authorities to consider both affirmative applications from legal immigrants proactively seeking asylum and defensive asylum cases filed by those who crossed into the country illegally and are fighting removal proceedings in immigration court. So, the system provides a way for illegal immigrants to stay in the country longer while officials hear their cases, despite their unlawful entry.

Technological developments and the end of the Cold War accelerated migration, Krikorian noted, allowing many more immigrants—not just those in truly dire straits—to try their luck: “It just makes asylum something that is not sustainable or manageable in modern circumstances.”

A Ukrainian family who fled Kyiv waits to seek asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on the U.S. southern border. Mario Tama / Getty Images

IN AN EFFORT TO LOWER illegal crossings, the Biden administration unveiled a new appointment feature through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile app in January 2023. It allowed migrants to request appointments at U.S. ports of entry while they waited in Mexico. Officials took basic information and paroled them into the United States for up to two years. Most of the new arrivals hoped to apply for asylum once they got into the country.

But it’s unclear how many actually did. Krikorian believes it’s likely that a large number didn’t. Asylum-seekers must file their cases within a year of arrival, and Krikorian said many of them have already missed that window.

“What people found out rather quickly is that sometimes it wasn’t necessarily that they actually had a viable case, but they knew that the best way to be able to get work in the U.S. … and be able to stay for an undefined amount of time was by applying for asylum,” said James Blaise, Adam’s lawyer. Blaise, who works for the Pacific Justice Institute in Indianapolis, has handled every type of asylum case. He noted authorities deny the majority of applications because the criteria are so narrow.

But Blaise doesn’t blame the immigrants who decided to give asylum a shot despite not having viable cases. He blames the government. “People took advantage of the asylum backlog … because that’s the way the laws were set,” he said. “They were able to make a good living and help their family. So I think the fault there is on the government and on the laws that are set forth.”

The influx of dubious cases put some lawyers in an ethical bind. Too many went ahead and filed cases they knew wouldn’t succeed in court, Blaise said. “You could make a lot of money by filing asylum cases,” he added.

The attorneys I interviewed said the asylum system’s current dysfunction hurts most the people the system intended to help. Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States wait in one of the country’s longest lines. Adam, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban attempted to kill him, insists he can’t go back. He became a Christian during his odyssey to the United States, which means he has even more reason to fear returning to his home country. Adam is still waiting on an asylum decision. His application is stuck in a stack that could take between four to six years to process. Some asylum-seekers wait almost a decade for their first hearing.

Sarah Flagel, a managing attorney for World Relief at an asylum legal clinic in Chicago, said the severe backlogs mean the timing for each case is hard to predict. “The conversation I’m having with folks, when I consult with them, is, ‘We may get your interview within 21 days of filing, and it may be five, eight, 10, 12 years.’”

Asylum cases are difficult to prove, and it’s not uncommon for applicants to be unsure about whether their case qualifies or not. Applicants must present evidence to document why they were persecuted, Flagel said. “It requires the applicant to know what the motive of their persecutor was. It can be a guessing game.”

Decisions take into account 40-plus years of jurisprudence from the courts, she said. Asylum officers typically interview applicants in affirmative cases, while judges in immigration courts take on defensive cases—asylum requests from immigrants in removal proceedings. “The decisions are very nuanced,” Flagel noted. As of 2022, authorities had granted about 40% of the nearly 700,000 cases decided since 2000.

An immigrant from Venezuela tries in vain to access the CBP One app a day after the inauguration of President Trump. John Moore / Getty Images

TODAY, A STRANGE STILLNESS has settled over the southern border. Soon after taking office, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, closed the border, and shut down the appointment feature on the CBP One app. The Trump administration also instructed immigration judges to drop asylum cases they deem unlikely to succeed if they proceed to court.

The asylum pause put one Venezuelan family’s plans on an indefinite hold. Luis Delgado, his wife, and their two children have been living in a shelter run by a Mexican pastor in Juárez, Mexico, since December 2024. Delgado, a former engineer and professing evangelical Christian, told me his story over WhatsApp in June. The family left Venezuela in 2017 because it became difficult to access food, medicine, and other basic necessities.

“I also fear returning to Venezuela due to my political opinion,” Delgado told me over text. “I protested against the regime, and as a result I could not find work, since many institutions require loyalty to the government. This led to discrimination, fear of retaliation, and a lack of opportunities to support my family.”

From Venezuela, they moved to Chile where their younger son was born. The now 5-year-old boy has a severe sensory disorder, cannot speak, and struggles to consume solid foods, his father told me. So the family struck out once again, this time for the United States, hoping to obtain better medical care for their son. The family intended to cross legally and claim asylum, so they requested a CBP One appointment in December. But when they didn’t hear anything about their application, they decided to cross the border illegally and turn themselves in to immigration authorities. Officials took them to a shelter in Texas but the next day promptly returned them to Mexico before they had a chance to make their case, Delgado said.

Now, with the border closed and no way to request asylum, the family isn’t sure what to do next. Each passing day is a reminder that they can’t stay in the Mexican shelter forever.

Advocacy groups, including the ACLU, are challenging Trump’s emergency asylum pause in court. The ban violates U.S. law, the groups wrote in their complaint, arguing the president does not have the authority to “unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger.”

If federal courts throw out Trump’s current emergency asylum ban, numbers will likely start ticking back up. On July 3, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled the president does not have the authority to end asylum and thereby establish an “alternative immigration system.” But Moss said the ruling would not immediately take effect, giving the administration a chance to appeal.

Asylum-seekers sit outside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office as they deal with the cancellation of the CBP One program after waiting months for an appointment with officials to enter the United States. Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

MOST IMMIGRATION EXPERTS AGREE the asylum system desperately needs lasting congressional reform. But disputes over the nuts and bolts of potential changes get dicey.

“Now that migrants all around the world know that if [asylum] opened up again, that’s the way to come in, we would quickly get overwhelmed again,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a National Immigration Forum fellow and former Department of Homeland Security official. That could put the country back in a dangerous position, she warned, since, unlike refugees, ­asylum-seekers aren’t vetted until after they’ve arrived. The way the system functions now also empowers criminal smuggling groups, who take advantage of migrants’ confusion about the legal requirements of the status, she said.

But now that the tap has been turned off, she worries Congress may not feel enough pressure to get to work on serious bipartisan reforms, despite the public outcry in response to the flood of new arrivals that shifted the 2024 election in Republicans’ favor.

Redirecting potential asylum-seekers to other temporary programs, as Biden did through the CBP One app and other parole programs, won’t ease pressure on the system in the long run, Cardinal Brown argued. These policies only exacerbated the problem since it was still unclear whether “we were actually taking valid asylum cases through this legal way, or we were just taking people who wanted to come in and get work authorization,” she said.

In May, congressional Republicans proposed charging a $1,000 fee per asylum application along with $550 for work permit renewals, in hopes of discouraging dubious claims. Congress could more easily pass this type of change through the reconciliation process since it’s related to funding, Cardinal Brown pointed out.

Current asylum law also allows the president to implement bilateral safe third-country agreements that would require immigrants to first apply for asylum in a country along the way before making their way to the United States. Other advocates have proposed streamlining temporary visa programs for low-skilled jobs or creating a more permanent visa program for year-round, low-skilled workers to shift them away from the asylum system.

But Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies argued it’s time to eliminate asylum altogether from U.S. immigration law.

Krikorian isn’t against incremental reforms. For instance, he argues eliminating the more vague category of “membership in a particular social group” from asylum could help ease pressure on the system. But he worries small changes won’t be enough to ensure the asylum system doesn’t usher in complete border chaos in the future. Instead of being able to claim protection once they reach U.S. soil and remain until their hearings, Krikorian said, asylum-­seekers should be sent to a third country where they can request protection there.

“If you’re really an asylum-seeker, if you really are fleeing persecution, then going to another country where you’re not going to be persecuted, even if it’s not great, is still preferable.”

In Juárez, Delgado and his family are free from the Venezuelan government’s political oppression, but they haven’t found safety in Mexico. Delgado told me their family received death threats from former shelter residents. Their son needs proper medical care. All reasons, he said, why he believes their family could make a successful asylum case in the United States.

“We are waiting on God’s will, but it has been a very difficult process for us,” he wrote. “We are asking God for new direction, because [we’ve] been here for a long time.”