First Trump Term Saw Record Low in U.S. Refugee Admissions

Following the suspected shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghani man recently granted asylum in the U.S., the current administration has stopped the processing of all asylum claims as well as visas for Afghan nationals. U.S. President Donald Trump said that he wanted to "permanently pause" migration from "third-world countries" and even reverse it.

Final asylum data for Trump's time back in office has not yet been published, but preliminary numbers shows 38,000 asylum cases granted in fiscal year 2025, only slightly more than a third of fiscal year 2024's figure. This could further sink as in October, the Trump administration announced a new refugee admissions cap of just 7,500 and said it would prioritize white South Africans.

Previously, by the end of Trump's first term in fiscal year 2020, the number of asylum claims granted in the United States had sunk to a historic low of just 11,800, as seen in official figures. While new arrivals to the U.S. and other countries slowed to a trickle during the coronavirus pandemic, the statistic at hand shows final and permanent admissions to the country, which often happen many years after an individual has asked for asylum.

Starting in January, the Trump administration already further tightened entry at the Southern U.S. border, denying those entering the country without documents even the brief chance to argue a case for claiming asylum during the expedited removal process. Taking away these short hearings, so-called fear interviews, has a questionable legality. Previously, the Biden administration had also made asylum at the Southern border more difficult for new arrivals when Covid-era rules ended in mid-2023. It did so by relying further on fear interviews and expedited removals, instead encouraging people to use pathways to U.S. humanitarian visas before arriving at the border.

Despite restrictive tendencies under Biden, final positive asylum claims under his administration rose once more to 100,000 in FY2024, again likely from older claims. The same year, more than 70,000 people were admitted to the country as a result of showing credible fear in their interviews. In total, almost 170,000 such interviews were conducted that fiscal year.

Biden also extended the cap of U.S. refugee admissions to 125,000 in FY2021. Yet, only around 11,400 asylees were admitted amid the coronavirus pandemic between October 2020 and September 2021. The Trump administration had set the cap at 15,000 in 2020 after having dialed back the annual number of refugees that could be admitted to the U.S. for a couple of years in a row. Even in 2002 and 2003, shortly after the passing of the Patriot Act, the U.S. still received 27,000 and 28,000 refugees, respectively.

Refugees from Asia have historically been the largest group of people being granted asylum in the U.S. Almost 45 percent of grantees since 1975 came from that continent (excluding South Asia), with the biggest influxes from Vietnam around 1980, Hmong and Laotians up to around 1992 and from Myanmar and Bhutan around 2008.