Asylum in America, by the numbers
Under President Biden, the Border Patrol has arrested more people for illegally crossing the southern border into the country than in any other period since the government started keeping count in 1960.
His time in office coincides with a global migration movement driven by tens of millions of people displaced because of war, persecution, climate change, violence and human rights abuses, according to the United Nations.
More Americans far from the border are witnessing the trend as migrants make their way to cities around the country. Most of these migrants have been told to appear in immigration court, often years from now. Some seek asylum with the goal of staying in the country permanently.
Republicans have long used immigration as a cudgel against Democrats. Now Democratic officials in parts of the country are asking the Biden administration to do more to help support the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive in their cities with nothing.
It is drawing attention to an immigration system that has been under strain for decades. Congress has failed to update laws designed to address the American economy and migration trends of 30 years ago. And the asylum system, chronically understaffed and underfunded, has a backlog of two million cases that some say is insurmountable.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at the current system based on data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. [Continue reading…]