Asylum Crisis as Mexican Nationals Overwhelm System

According to a report from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, nearly 1/3 of the immigrants making asylum claims last year who were released on bond or their own recognizance never even bothered to appear in immigration court. 

The Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Statisical Yearbook for 2012 says that number is up sharply, with 66% more no-shows than in 2008.

The asylum system appears to be a magnet for abuse by those who make a claim to get into the country and then vanish. As Breitbart News reported, last week one border crossing near San Diego saw a sudden flood of asylum requests that resulted in the checkpoint being shut down.

The numbers from the DoJ indicate a growing crisis in the system the United States uses to grant asylum to international refugees, as the immigration courts are overwhelmed by cases from Mexican immigrants that rarely result in asylum being granted.

In raw numbers, Mexican immigrants made 9,206 asylum claims in 2012 but were only found by the immigration courts to have 126 claims worthy of being granted. Compare those numbers to immigrants from a country like China–often accused of human rights violations–11,197 asylum claims were made, 4,705 of which were granted.

There is no breakdown in the report by nationality for the people who make an asylum claim but don’t bother to show up in court, but in 2012, 29% of all asylum applicants released on bond or their own recognizance were “failure to appears.” 

The cost in court time for frivolous claims is also staggering. For the past five years, cases involving Mexican immigrants rank #1 in the amount of immigration court cases completed in terms of both normal decisions and appeals. However, in terms of the number of actual asylums that were granted, Mexico has never ranked higher than #17 and didn’t even make the list of the top 25 grantees from 2008-2010.

Over 65% of the asylum cases completed in the immigration courts in 2012 involved nationals from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala, with Mexicans being the vast majority of all cases completed at 42%. Additionally, 67% of all immigration court proceeding are completed in Spanish.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review is a division of the Department of Justic that oversees immigration courts. According to the EOIR’s website, their stated mission is:

The primary mission of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation’s immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings.