Politics

Leaked Data Shows 10-Fold Increase In Obama’s Asylum Approvals

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

The number of foreigners who successfully filed asylum claims in the United States almost tripled from 2012 to 2013, up to 30,393.

That’s 10 times the number from 2008, when President Barack Obama was elected, and it is evidence his immigration officials are agreeing that many people in the growing wave of Central American migrants face a “credible fear” of harm if they are returned. Official approval allows the migrants to file for asylum in immigration court, where judges will approve or reject the asylum request.

If you came illegally to the U.S. seeking asylum in 2013, you had better than a four-in-five chance of successfully filing an asylum claim. That’s up from a three-in-five chance in 2008.

The migrants include mothers with children, and youths who have been brought north by their parents who are living illegally in the United States. Roughly 240,000 migrants — parents, youths and children — are expected to cross the border by the end of September.

The total includes 57,525 unaccompanied youths and children, from October 2013 to June 30, 2014, according to DHS. Because of a 2008 law, unaccompanied youths from countries other than Mexico and Canada don’t have to pass the “credible fear” hurdle, but can directly file asylum cases in immigration courts.

Legislators urged more care in granting asylum after the media reported that the father of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, successfully applied for asylum in 2002.

The internal federal data from the Department of Homeland Security was provided to The Daily Caller by a source.

It shows that officials endorsed 3,097 asylum requests in the year up to Sept. 30, 2008 — dubbed fiscal year 2008 — to people who said they faced a “credible fear” of persecution if they were repatriated.

Obama took office in January 2009, and officials approved 3,411 “credible fear” approvals in the next 12 months, up to the end of September in 2009.

Officials approved another 6,293 in the next 12 months, and another 9,423 in the next 12 months, ending September 2011.

In fiscal year 2012, ending September 2012, Obama’s officials approved 10,838 claims, before tripling the score to 30,393 in 2013.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of would-be migrants — including many “unaccompanied minors” — from Central America began flooding over the southern border.

Many of the youths — roughly half claimed to be aged between 14 and 17 — and the children claimed asylum. Once their asylum claims were submitted, they were subsequently transported by federal agencies to their parents living illegally in the United States. The youths and children are also automatically enrolled in a variety of welfare, education and medical programs, and some receive free legal advice from taxpayer-funded attorneys.

Tens of thousands of adults with children also crossed the border and many claimed “credible fear” of persecution by criminal gangs in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Some parts of those countries are afflicted by gangs, some of which included many former illegal immigrants who were deported from the United States.

Once their “credible fear” claims are endorsed by administration officials, the adults can file for asylum.

The 30,393 “credible fear” approvals in fiscal 2013, ending in Sept. 30, 2013, likely included many of the 2011 and 2012 border-crossers. Few 2013 border-crossers would have their claims adjudicated quickly enough, unless they’re being rubber-stamped by Obama’s officials.

However, the DHS data shows that “credible fear” claims are being approved at a higher rate by Obamas deputies.

The approval rate jumped from 64 percent in 2008 to 84 percent in 2013.

The number of people claiming “credible fear” grew slowly from 118,457 in 2008 to 123,180 in 2011. But it lept up to 183,681 in 2012, indicating a huge number of asylum requests, most likely from the southern border-crossers.

The data does not show the number of people who claimed credible fear in 2013.

When a person make a “credible fear” plea for asylum, the claim is initially checked by police in the Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Those agencies gave provision approval to 13,880 claims in 2012, but 38,035 claims in 2013. Immigration officials then rejected 1,187 claims of those claims in 2012, and 2,587 claims in 2013.

The data does not say how many of the rejected claimants were repatriated.

According to the Los Angeles Times, only 1,669 immigrants younger than 18 were rejected in 2013. That’s down from 8.143 in 2008.

Follow Neil on Twitter