Limen, 2026 No. 1
This article examines the sharp decline in asylum grant rates by U.S. immigration judges from 51 percent in February 2024 to 19 percent in August 2025. It evaluates explanations attributing the decline to late Biden administration measures, including the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule and the Securing the Border proclamation, and to changes under the second Trump administration, including immigration judge departures and dismissals. The article argues that these factors do not fully explain the timing or scale of the decline because many cases decided during this period originated years earlier. It instead emphasizes two additional explanations: the influence of attorneys general through binding interpretations of asylum law and the possibility that electoral pressures during the 2024 presidential campaign encouraged stricter immigration enforcement. Drawing on asylum court statistics, administrative decisions, polling, government reports, and commentary, the article compares grant-rate changes across presidential administrations and around major policy interventions. It concludes that both governing philosophies and election campaigns can shape asylum adjudication outcomes, while acknowledging that several causal relationships remain inferential rather than definitively established within the United States immigration system.