DOGE Exposed Our Immigration Asylum Disaster. That Was the Tip of the Iceberg
Apr 8, 2025
COMMENTARY BY
Lora Ries
Lora is Director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
An ICE agent monitors hundreds of asylum seekers being processed upon entering the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on June 6, 2023 in New York City.
David Dee Delgado / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
There is no cost involved in applying. This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications.
DOGE found 1.3 million aliens who were already receiving Medicaid. They also found among the millions a subset who were registered to vote—and some who did vote.
By acting now, Congress can ensure U.S. taxpayer benefits go to Americans first, and incentivize better compliance with our generous immigration laws.
Elon Musk, Antonio Gracias and the DOGE team recently exposed how rampant immigration fraud and government corruption became under the Biden administration. Specifically, they showed how aliens “getting” asylum can receive work authorization and, with it, an automatic Social Security number, which enables them to obtain driver’s licenses, commit voter fraud and receive other benefits.
This already sounds alarming. But the truth is even worse.
Under current U.S. regulations, asylum applicants can apply for a work authorization document with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) five months after their asylum application is filed (rather than five months after it’s granted). There’s no filing fee for asylum applications—meaning there is literally no cost involved in applying.
This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications to gain U.S. work authorization
https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/doge-exposed-our-immigration-asylum-disaster-was-the-tip-the-iceberg
