Justice Department slashes asylum approval rate to about five percent under Trump officials

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the Trump administration’s deputies have reduced the asylum approval rate to roughly five percent, and to just above one percent for migrants without counsel, a sharp decline from the twenty percent rate under Biden. The Immigration Accountability Project attributed the drop to recent reforms by the Justice Department, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which it says are intended to make the process more efficient.

Since October 2025, about 514,000 cases have been accepted and nearly one million have been processed by the department’s 700 immigration judges, a throughput five times higher than pre-2021 levels. New BIA precedents such as Matter of B-S-A-N and Matter of M-R-I codify stricter standards for claims from democratic countries and those who have used Advance Parole. Critics, including HIAS and other advocacy groups, warn that the reforms could undermine due-process protections for genuine refugees.