Back in 2019, the Trump Administration ended the long-standing practice of releasing data about our nation’s Asylum Offices. The Biden Administration has not seemed particularly eager to restore transparency, but now, a year and a half after President Biden took office, we finally have some new data from the Asylum Division. Mind you, the data is only current as of December 31, 2021, but we are told more information will be released soon. Since “soon” in asylum world tends to mean “not any time soon,” I’ve decided to write about the information we have now, rather than wait for a second data dump, which may or may not be released in the near future.
The new data gives us a lot to discuss and sheds some light on why cases are moving so slowly. It also raises questions about how the asylum system is working–or not working. (more…)