Something’s Screwy with Immigration Court Border Cases
Asylum grants are down — but so are denials
By Andrew R. Arthur on June 2, 2023
The immigration courts are a component of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and a review of DOJ statistics on decision filing rates in border asylum cases reveals that something screwy is going on — asylum grants are down, but so are asylum denials, while the percentage of “other” determinations are way up. What gives?
“Asylum Decision and Filing Rates in Cases Originating with a Credible Fear Claim”. The statistics, issued by DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the agency that oversees the immigration courts and the appellate Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) — are formally captioned “Asylum Decision and Filing Rates in Cases Originating with a Credible Fear Claim” (see a screenshot from the pdf file at the end of this post, from item 10 here). The title requires some brief explanation.
Both Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal entrants and aliens deemed inadmissible by CBP officers at the ports of entry are referred to as “encounters”, and when CBP encounters either an illegal entrant or an alien who has presented fraudulent admission documents or no admission documents at all, it has a choice.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Somethings-Screwy-Immigration-Court-Border-Cases
