Almost 1 MILLION people applied for asylum in US in 2023

The total of 945,370 asylum applications was record-setting, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The numbers were not only the highest in recorded US history but DHS documented how both affirmative and defensive asylum cases almost doubled in size under the Biden-Harris administration. Affirmative asylum applicants are those who begin a case for asylum with US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Defensive asylum seekers are people who are on the verge of being thrown out of country and apply to an immigration judge for asylum in the hopes of postponing or ending their deportation, the Daily Caller News Foundation noted.

In fiscal year 2023, 456,750 people applied for affirmative asylum in the US – the highest on record and almost double that of the previous year, DHS noted. The same was the case with defensive applications as they reached 488,620 cases, nearly double the 260,830 cases from fiscal year 2022.

The Biden-Harris administration allowed 100,000 refugees into the country in fiscal year 2023 and wants an additional 25,000 for the next fiscal year. The regime has been lax in sending criminal illegal immigrants back where they came from, with deportations down by 74 percent since Biden became president.

Former President Donald Trump has blamed the Biden-Harris administration for maintaining an open border policy and allowing the entry of tens of millions of illegal immigrants into the country without fear of judicial recourse. Among this group, there are 13,000 convicted murderers and 435,000 with criminal records.

The DHS report also noted how the Biden-Administration has targeted specific nationalities that are finding it easier to attain asylum status. Venezuela enjoys a sort of preferred asylum status as the number of cases from that country has shot up from 15,000 cases in fiscal year 2021 to 173,190 in fiscal year 2023. Other groups that saw an escalation in approved claims came from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti.

All four countries are included in the administration’s Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela (CHNV) parole program that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is demanding that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security immediately end, charging that the program is replete with fraud while helping to facilitate trafficking and violent crime that includes "sexual assault, rape, and murder.” Cruz and other supporting senators sent a letter in September to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to say that the CHNV Parole Program should be terminated “immediately,” because it is “ineffective, unlawful, and hazardous.”