U.S. Asylum Claims Backlog Tops 1.5 Million

More than 1.5 million people in the US are waiting for their asylum claims to be heard, as the Supreme Court weighs the merits of the Trump-era Title 42 health policy — and could order it ended as soon as Tuesday.

According to federal statistics, the number of asylum applications pending has increased dramatically over the past decade. data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse Syracuse University has expressed concern that Title 42 might be lifted and a surge in migration to the US-Mexico border.

The number of asylum seekers — 1,565,966 — is split between the 767,882 waiting for hearings before judges in the Department of Justice’s Immigration Courts and the 778,084 waiting for hearings before US Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Homeland Security Department, the analysis says. 

According to the Syracuse clearinghouse, political instability in Mexico and Venezuela, Haiti, Central America, and other regions are responsible for the rising number of claims. These claims have outpaced the number immigration judges and asylum officers who were put in place during the recent presidential administrations. 

Long lines of migrants waited at El Paso’s border to be taken to US Border Protection and Customs. James Keivom

In the last ten years, the number of cases in Immigration Courts has risen sevenfold. They have seen 100,000 asylum applications during fiscal year 2012 and more than 750,000 as of September 30th.

In October and November, another 30,000 cases were brought to the table, bringing the total up to 787.882.

The clearinghouse uses information from Freedom of Information Act to create a vast database that spans back years. It claims comparable figures are not yet available for the USCIS. 

It warned — as have many border officials — that the end of Title 42 could “lead to an increase

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