In its newest report, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) finds that the odds of an asylum claim being denied in immigration court has risen to 50.2 percent during the first nine months of 2014. After reaching a historic low of only 44.5 percent of cases denied two years ago (FY 2012), the denial rate has been on the rise. However, put in a historical context, ten years ago almost two out of three individuals seeking asylum lost their cases. Meanwhile, the immigration courts are tremendously backlogged, with some 350,000 cases pending, and that was before the recent influx of immigrants from Central America. During 2013, 20,941 cases were decided by immigration judges, while ten years earlier, 70 percent more cases, or 35,782, were decided. FY2014 portends to be no better than FY2013.
