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Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is further limiting due process for asylum-seekers in the US.
What’s happening? On Tuesday, the administration issued a rule changing how some asylum requests are handled. Under the new policy, immigrants in more than 444,000 asylum cases could be denied the chance to speak with an asylum officer and claim asylum, which requires them to have experienced persecution, or the threat of persecution, in their home country because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinions, or another characteristic.
Instead, those immigrants would be redirected to immigration judges — who could order their deportation without any additional process.
The change, according to the administration, is intended to help clear a substantial backlog in the US asylum system, which has 1.4 million cases currently pending. But it fits a pattern by the Trump administration of dramatically curtailing access to asylum in the US.
What’s the context? Under the second Trump administration, many previous immigration judges have been forced out or fired from their roles. Their replacements, as Bloomberg reported earlier this year, are minimally trained and instructed to deny most asylum claims outright.
What’s the big picture? The Trump administration also has a long record of sending immigrants back into dangerous situations in their home countries, or even to countries to which they have no connection.
With less than 100 days until the 2026 midterm elections, don’t miss my colleague Astead Herndon’s new newsletter, The Midterms, Actually. Every week, Astead breaks down the big ideas and key people behind the political shifts shaping the 2026 elections. You can subscribe here.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Want to spend less time on social media? Here’s some excellent advice from my colleague Constance Grady, available here with a gift link.
Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
