How many asylum seekers were granted protection each year versus how many applied under each administration?
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Executive summary
Federal data show the United States granted roughly 54,350 people asylum in 2023 (total asylees, including 22,300 affirmative grants) while asylum applications and backlogs remained far larger—over 1.3 million applications were pending as of May in one review [1] [2]. Grant rates have varied widely by year, adjudicator and venue: TRAC reported grant-rate peaks above 50% in parts of FY2023 and sharp declines to the mid-30s by October 2024 and to under 20% in some months of 2025 [3] [4].
1. What the headline numbers actually mean: grants versus asylees
The 54,350 figure for 2023 is an OHSS tally of “asylees provided protection” that combines affirmative and defensive grants and can include derivative family members tied to a principal applicant; within that total, OHSS reported 22,300 affirmative asylum grants by agency adjudicators in 2023 [1]. That distinguishes “grants issued” in a fiscal year from the much larger stock of pending applications, and from the separate refugee admissions cap managed by the executive and Congress [1] [2].
2. The application side: huge backlog, no fixed annual cap
Unlike refugee admissions, asylum filings have no statutory annual quota. Migration Policy Institute and related reporting note more than 1.3 million asylum applications awaiting processing as of May in their snapshot, with roughly 750,000 pending in immigration courts and another 600,000 at USCIS—demonstrating why yearly grant counts can look small compared with the pending caseload [2].
3. Why grant rates move so much: policy, docketing and venue
Grant rates are volatile because outcomes depend on whether a case is decided affirmatively by USCIS, defensively in immigration court, the speed of proceedings, judge assignment and procedural changes. TRAC traced grant-rate swings: above 50% in parts of FY2023, down to about 35.8% by October 2024, and reports through August 2025 show further declines—August 2025 saw only 19.2% grants in EOIR data [3] [4]. Congress’ CRS note underscores that EOIR calculates decision rates including grants, denials, administrative closures and “other” outcomes, complicating year‑to‑year comparisons [5].
4. Comparing administrations: available sources do not give a simple annual “applied vs. granted” across presidencies
Available sources do not present a single, administration-by-administration table that lines up the number of applications filed each year with grants issued under each President. Reports instead provide periodic snapshots (OHSS yearly tallies, EOIR adjudication tables, and external analyses) showing totals, pending inventories and fluctuating grant rates; these are the components you’d need to build a direct comparison but that aggregated, administration‑level matching is not in the provided material [1] [2] [5].
5. What changes in policy do—and how they show up in the statistics
Policy shifts can rapidly change filing flows and decisions. For example, refugee admission ceilings are set by the President and fell sharply under the Trump administration then rose under Biden, but asylum filings remain uncapped and are affected by executive rules and border enforcement changes; KFF and news reporting describe actions in 2024–2025 that curtailed entries and paused programs, which in turn affect filings and adjudications [2] [6] [7]. TRAC links faster “rocket dockets” and case acceleration to lower grant rates because applicants have less time to prepare [3].
6. The practical implication: small annual grants, large unresolved demand
Even when tens of thousands receive protection in a year, the pending caseload dwarfs annual grants. That gap—documented by OHSS counts of asylees and MPI’s pending-application total—drives long waits, uneven outcomes across courts and makes year-to-year grant totals a partial lens on system capacity [1] [2].
7. How journalists and policymakers should read the numbers
Use multiple metrics: (a) number of grants (affirmative vs. defensive), (b) filings in the year, (c) pending caseload, and (d) grant rate (noting EOIR’s definition includes closures and “other” outcomes). TRAC and EOIR give different but complementary views; relying on a single headline (grants issued in a year) risks missing backlog dynamics and procedural shifts that change success rates [3] [5] [8].
Limitations and next steps: the assembled sources report totals, grant‑rate series and pending inventories but do not provide an aligned, year-by-year table that attributes applications and grants cleanly to each presidential administration—building that requires merging EOIR, USCIS and OHSS annual files and clarifying inclusion rules for derivatives and administrative closures [1] [5] [8].