FactChecking Claims About Asylum Grants and Immigration Court Attendance

While discussing ways to quickly determine if people who cross into the U.S. through Mexico are eligible for asylum, Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio claimed that “only about half of them even show up for their court cases” and “only 15% of them qualify” for asylum. But government statistics aren’t that clear-cut.

A study published last year in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review found that “88% of all immigrants in immigration court with completed or pending removal cases over the past eleven years attended all of their court hearings.” The analysis of government data also revealed that 95% of nondetained individuals who filed for asylum or other forms of relief from removal attended all of their court hearings over the same time period from 2008 to 2018, the authors said.

Also, to get the 15% grant rate for asylum cases in fiscal year 2019, government officials factored in tens of thousands of people who were neither granted nor denied asylum, including the nearly 40% of people who didn’t file for asylum after a “credible fear” interview with asylum officers. 

If only the number of actual grants and denials are considered, the asylum grant rate that year would be around 32%.

In a March 21 interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Portman said that the government needed to invest in ways to immediately determine if migrants apprehended when crossing the southern border meet the requirements for asylum.

“Let’s put the resources into that so people can find out right away,” he said. “Do they qualify or not? Right now, as you know, it’s