US asylum law comes from the Refugee Act of 1980, which adopted the definition of a refugee from the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Applicants must generally file within one year of arriving. Unlike criminal defendants, asylum seekers have no right to a government-appointed lawyer, and people with lawyers are much more likely to win.
The immigration courts are overwhelmed. At the end of August 2026, more than 3 million cases were pending, and about 2.3 million of those involved asylum applications, according to TRAC at Syracuse University.
Asylum access has narrowed sharply. Since January 2025, presidential proclamations have sought to suspend asylum at the southern border, prompting legal challenges. Historically, US asylum policy has treated groups unequally, such as the 1980s detention and interdiction of Haitians while Cubans were generally welcomed.