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Report: Majority Of Asylum Applications Approved On The Spot

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Jonah Bennett Contributor
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Numbers just released from the House Judiciary Committee show that in fiscal year 2014, 65 percent of asylum applications have been approved by officers on the spot, the Washington Examiner reports.

Approval rates for asylum have exploded in the past few years, based on data obtained from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In 2007, the approval rate was only 28 percent, and as recent as 2013, asylum officials only granted 46 percent of all applications. Beyond agents stationed directly at the border are immigration judges, who handle cases in the event of rejection from border officers.

These judges have also dramatically increased their approval rates from 51 percent in 2007 to 74 percent in 2013. The numbers listed in the report do not include cases that are further appealed to federal court or to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“Once individuals are granted asylum, they have access to all major federal welfare programs,” the report noted.

The suspicions raised by incredibly high asylum application approval rates have been confirmed in an internal Homeland Security report, where it was pointed out that a minimum of 70 percent of asylum cases contain either possible or proven fraud.

“President Obama’s refusal to crack down on rampant asylum fraud is one of the many reasons we are witnessing a surge of Central Americans seeking to enter the U.S. illegally at the border,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia. “New data showing that the vast majority of Central Americans’ asylum claims are immediately approved will only worsen the situation along our southern border by encouraging more to come and take advantage of the situation.”

Goodlatte’s worries have been translated into the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act introduced Thursday — a result of the bipartisan delegation he led to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to meet with local officials and surmise a set of solutions to the border crisis.

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