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This spring, DHS began piloting a new asylum officer processing rule intended to resolve asylum requests within months instead of years. Last year, the Biden administration launched a new Dedicated Docket in immigration courts for families seeking asylum at the southwest border, the goal being “to decide cases expeditiously, [while] fairness will not be compromised.”
The program has helped speed up asylum cases, but fairness has suffered, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. Only about one-third of families had representation in their cases, while about two-thirds of families never filed asylum applications before their cases were closed.
Meanwhile, the case backlog in immigration courts has continued to grow.
“There [is] no quick fix for the country’s asylum backlog,” said the TRAC report. “The evidence suggests that the United States can implement schemes to make asylum cases fast or make asylum cases fair, but not both.”
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