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The government does not keep precise data on how many domestic-violence survivors claim asylum, but figures released last month give a glimpse of the effect that Sessions’ decision has begun to have at one of the earliest stages of the asylum process.
People claiming asylum when they reach the border typically have an early interview with an immigration official to determine if they have enough of a case to proceed to a full hearing. Since January, immigration judges found asylum seekers had provided enough evidence in those credible fear interviews, as they are known, in only 14.7% of cases — about half as often as the same period in 2017, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The denials can lead to swift deportation.
The effect has been most drastic along the Southwest border and in Texas, where at a detention center in Hutto, immigration attorney Whitney Drake of American Gateways, an immigrant advocacy group, has seen a tripling in some week of the number of people asking her legal aid.
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