A significant increase of asylum approvals in the past year

[msv5450]

The attached statistics data-sheet was published by the Department of Homeland Security in Nov 2019. It shows the number of individuals who were granted asylum based on the country of nationality in fiscal years of 2009-2018. You can notice the significant increase in the number of approved cased in 2018 fiscal year (Oct 1, 2018 - Sep 30, 2019). The rise is enormous especially for Muslim and Middle Eastern countries.

They have hired new asylum officers in the past year to address the backlog. As a result they adjudicate many more cases compared to previous years. In addition, new officers tend to be less experienced which means, they are less jaded, less cynical. more gullible and more lenient and that causes them to approve more applicants.

 

[7of9]

I think we have discussed this issue before. It's all good to show the affirmative approvals by year...unfortunately, no useful statistical analysis can be done with this data: ie: 2010 = 11253 affirmative approvals vs. 2018 = 25439. But, how many people applied each year? How many applied in 2010? 2018? That is the critical missing number. If 12k applied in 2010 vs. 100k applied in 2018, then it would mean approvals were HIGHER in 2010.

Like I posted elsewhere: Total applicants, total referrals to court, total deported, etc + the above approval numbers would make the data useful.

 

[msv5450]

I think we have discussed this issue before. It's all good to show the affirmative approvals by year...unfortunately, no useful statistical analysis can be done with this data: ie: 2010 = 11253 affirmative approvals vs. 2018 = 25439. But, how many people applied each year? How many applied in 2010? 2018? That is the critical missing number. If 12k applied in 2010 vs. 100k applied in 2018, then it would mean approvals were HIGHER in 2010.

Like I posted elsewhere: Total applicants, total referrals to court, total deported, etc + the above approval numbers would make the data useful.

The overall approval percentage has surely dropped significantly since 2014. Just take a look at Miami office statistics on USCIS quarterly publications. It's roughly 10%. Miami used to have a high approving rate 3-4 years ago. Not any more because the number of south American applicants in Miami has exploded recently, majority of whom have baseless claims and get rejected and thus reduce the approving rate. On the other hand, based on the same statistics, you see that Chicago office approving rate jumped from 25% to above 40% just in 2018. This is because not many central and south American applicants are concentrated in Chicago office. There is an important conclusion to be drawn from this data-sheet and that is:

There has NOT been any notable change in the country conditions of some countries such as: Uzbekistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or even Russia in the past 1-2 years. This means the number of people who applied for affirmative asylum from these countries in 2018 must be roughly the same as 2017 and 2016. However, you see the total number of individuals who were granted asylum from these countries has boomed in 2018 fiscal year. The inevitable conclusion is that the novice officers tend to grant more approvals these days.

 

[timkh]

The overall approval percentage has surely dropped significantly since 2014. Just take a look at Miami office statistics on USCIS quarterly publications. It's roughly 10%. Miami used to have a high approving rate 3-4 years ago. Not any more because the number of south American applicants in Miami has exploded recently, majority of whom have baseless claims and get rejected and thus reduce the approving rate. On the other hand, based on the same statistics, you see that Chicago office approving rate jumped from 25% to above 40% just in 2018. This is because not many central and south American applicants are concentrated in Chicago office. There is an important conclusion to be drawn from this data-sheet and that is:

There has NOT been any notable change in the country conditions of some countries such as: Uzbekistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or even Russia in the past 1-2 years. This means the number of people who applied for affirmative asylum from these countries in 2018 must be roughly the same as 2017 and 2016. However, you see the total number of individuals who were granted asylum from these countries has boomed in 2018 fiscal year. The inevitable conclusion is that the novice officers tend to grant more approvals these days.

I totally agree with you about the country conditions. I'm from one the countries you have listed and nothing changed in past 1-2 years. Approval ratings have increased for a lot of countries, except for Latin America, which includes the Northern Triangle, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, etc. Those people from Latin America are in disadvantage position thanks to current U.S. Government. But I believe that it will get harder and harder to claim an asylum for any newcomer in the U.S, because the current government increasing the asylum approval bar step by step.