WASHINGTON — The U.S. immigration court system has undergone a dramatic transformation during the past two years, accompanied by a sharp decline in the number of asylum seekers receiving protection, according to a new analysis released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.TRAC reported on August 31, 2026, that only 771 individuals were granted asylum in June 2026, less than one-quarter of the number who received asylum in a comparable period three years earlier. At the same time, immigration courts processed an increasing number of asylum cases, producing an extraordinary 94.1% asylum denial rate in June 2026.According to TRAC, the national asylum grant rate fell to just 5.5% in June 2026, while 94.1% of cases were denied and another 0.4% resulted in denial of asylum but the granting of another form of relief.
Read the full TRAC report
A Historic Transformation of the Immigration Court Bench
One of the most consequential findings in the report concerns the extraordinary turnover among immigration judges.TRAC says that 279 immigration judges were fired or resigned during fiscal years 2025 and 2026. That represents approximately 38% of the 735 immigration judges who were employed at the end of FY2024, which TRAC identifies as the last full year of the Biden administration.The scale of the turnover is particularly striking when compared with the previous administration. TRAC reports that during President Biden’s four-year term, FY2021 through FY2024, an annual average of approximately 5% of immigration judges resigned or otherwise left the bench.
The Trump administration has also dramatically expanded the number of judges. According to TRAC, President Trump had hired 192 new immigration judges, while another 53 temporary judges had joined the immigration court system.As a result, 743 judges were deciding asylum cases during FY2026. Yet only 322—or approximately 43%—had already been serving before President Trump took office.In other words, the immigration court bench has not simply become larger; it has been substantially reconstituted.
Even Long-Serving Judges Became More Likely to Deny Asylum
TRAC’s findings go beyond the turnover of judges.The organization examined 130 immigration judges who remained on the bench and actively issued asylum decisions throughout FY2021 through FY2026. According to the report, approximately three-fourths of these judges increased their asylum denial rates in FY2026 compared with their own denial rates in FY2021.The average increase among those judges was approximately 33 percentage points, while the median increase was 28 percentage points.That finding is important because it suggests that the dramatic fall in asylum grants cannot be explained solely by the replacement of older judges with newly appointed judges.TRAC notes that asylum outcomes can be influenced by numerous factors, including judicial philosophy, the composition of a judge’s caseload, whether applicants are detained, immigration policies and other circumstances beyond an individual judge’s control.
Asylum Grant Rate Has Fallen for Four Consecutive Years
TRAC’s latest figures place the June 2026 asylum grant rate at an all-time low.The organization says asylum grant rates had already begun declining about four years ago during the Biden administration. By the end of President Biden’s presidency, the grant rate had fallen to approximately 32%, compared with more than 50% earlier in his administration.The decline continued and accelerated under the Trump administration.By June 2026, only 5.5% of asylum cases were granted, according to TRAC. The organization described the June denial rate of 94.1% as an unprecedented level in its analysis.This represents a profound change in the practical chances of an asylum seeker obtaining protection through the immigration court system.
Immigration Courts Are Processing More Cases
The report also shows that the immigration court system is now processing asylum cases at very high levels.With hundreds of new judges joining the system, asylum case completions have climbed sharply. TRAC reports that asylum case completions exceeded 13,000 in both April and May 2026.They surpassed 14,000 in March 2026 and again in June 2026.However, the increase has not been consistent. Following the firing of numerous judges, the number of asylum decisions dropped considerably during late 2025. In November and December 2025, asylum decisions fell to approximately 8,800 cases, only slightly above the level recorded toward the end of the Biden administration.The subsequent increase indicates that the administration’s expansion and restructuring of the immigration judiciary has substantially increased the system’s capacity to dispose of cases.But the crucial question is what those decisions mean for asylum seekers.More cases are being completed, but a dramatically smaller percentage are ending in asylum grants.
From Backlog Reduction to Denial Reduction?
The figures create an important policy debate.Reducing the enormous immigration court backlog is a longstanding objective shared by immigration officials, policymakers and many advocates. A system that can process cases more rapidly can provide applicants with faster answers and reduce years of uncertainty.However, the speed of adjudication is only one measure of the system’s performance.The other question is whether asylum applicants are receiving fair and legally sound consideration of their claims.A system in which more than 94 out of every 100 asylum cases are denied raises serious questions about how immigration policy, judicial turnover, case selection, legal representation and changing standards are affecting outcomes.TRAC itself cautions against treating individual judges’ denial rates as a simple measure of judicial quality. The organization emphasizes that outcomes are affected by factors including the nature of a judge’s caseload, detention status, nationality of applicants, access to legal representation and broader immigration policies.
The Human Consequences Behind the Statistics
Behind every percentage point in the TRAC report are people whose futures may depend on the decision of an immigration court.Asylum seekers generally claim that returning to their countries would expose them to persecution or serious danger because of circumstances protected under U.S. asylum law.A denial can therefore mean more than simply losing an immigration case. Depending on the individual’s circumstances and other available forms of relief, it can potentially lead to removal from the United States and separation from family, employment and established community ties.For immigrants from countries experiencing political instability, religious persecution, ethnic conflict or other serious threats, the consequences can be especially profound.The dramatic fall from a 32% grant rate at the end of the Biden presidency to 5.5% in June 2026 therefore deserves close examination—not simply as an immigration statistic, but as an indication of how profoundly the U.S. asylum system has changed.
Legal Representation and Nationality Also Matter
TRAC’s report stresses that asylum outcomes are not determined by judges alone.Two factors specifically highlighted by TRAC are legal representation and the nationality of the asylum seeker.The organization says that these factors can significantly affect case outcomes and therefore incorporates them into its judge-by-judge analysis.This is an important qualification when comparing judges or immigration courts. A judge handling a docket dominated by detained applicants, for example, may have a substantially different case mix from a judge whose docket consists largely of represented applicants living in the community.Consequently, a high denial rate should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of misconduct or bias by an individual judge.At the same time, the enormous national shift documented by TRAC cannot easily be dismissed as simply the product of differences between individual judges.
The Immigration Court System Is Now a Very Different Institution
Perhaps the most significant conclusion emerging from the report is that the immigration judiciary of 2026 is substantially different from the immigration judiciary of only a few years ago.Hundreds of judges have departed.Hundreds of new or temporary judges have entered.Case completion rates have climbed.And asylum grant rates have collapsed.TRAC reports that only 43% of judges deciding asylum cases in FY2026 had been serving before President Trump took office. That means the majority of judges deciding asylum cases during the current fiscal year entered the system after the change in administration or were appointed during the new administration.The transformation therefore involves both personnel and policy.
A Major Warning for Immigrant Communities
For immigrant communities across the United States, the report should serve as a major warning that the legal environment surrounding asylum has changed dramatically.Individuals who previously believed that filing an asylum application gave them a reasonable possibility of receiving protection now face a substantially different statistical environment.
The June 2026 figures are particularly stark:
771 people were granted asylum.
5.5% was the national asylum grant rate.
94.1% of asylum cases were denied.
More than 14,000 asylum cases were completed in June.
279 immigration judges fired or resigned during FY2025–FY2026.
192 new immigration judges were hired.
53 temporary judges joined the immigration court system.
743 judges decided asylum cases during FY2026.
Only 322 judges, or 43%, had been serving before President Trump took office.These numbers demonstrate the magnitude of the transformation.
What Happens Next?
The central question now is whether the exceptionally high asylum denial rate represents a temporary consequence of the rapid restructuring of the immigration courts or the beginning of a new long-term normal for the American asylum system.The answer will have enormous consequences.If case processing continues at record levels while asylum grants remain near their current historic lows, the United States could see a fundamentally different asylum system—one characterized by much faster adjudication but substantially fewer successful applications.The issue is therefore no longer simply about immigration enforcement or reducing the court backlog. It is about the future structure, independence, fairness and accessibility of the U.S. asylum system itself.TRAC’s latest report provides some of the clearest statistical evidence yet that the transformation is already well underway.
Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University, “Asylum Denials Rise to 94% Amid the Remaking of the Immigration Court,” published August 31, 2026.