U.S. Asylum Statistics 2026: Grant Rates, Denials and the Backlog

In the first nine months of FY2026 (October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026), immigration judges granted asylum in 7,231 cases and denied it in 89,740. In all of FY2025 they granted 26,599 and denied 82,431; in FY2024, 32,436 and 38,529 (U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review). Grants in nine months of FY2026 are 78% below the full FY2024 figure.

Two other outcomes grew even faster. Applications recorded as abandoned rose from 18,444 in FY2024 to 92,081 in nine months of FY2026, and withdrawals from 14,456 to 18,251. Applications not adjudicated at all, usually because the case ended in an in absentia removal order, were 44,062. Of the 254,680 asylum decisions recorded in FY2026 so far, only 2.8% were grants.

On June 30, 2026, 2,324,099 asylum applications were pending in immigration court, down from 2,530,933 at the end of FY2024 but still +464% above FY2016 (U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review). USCIS asylum offices held another 1,392,782 affirmative applications on the same date (USCIS).

Filings in court have shifted. Defensive applications peaked at 901,008 in FY2024 and ran at 129,217 in the first nine months of FY2026, while affirmative applications referred by USCIS rose to 69,852, the highest figure in the series, as asylum offices resumed interviews and referred cases they did not grant.

USCIS approved 5,996 affirmative asylum applications in July to September 2025, 2,666 in October to December, 66 in January to March 2026 and 1,620 in April to June 2026, while denials and referrals to immigration court, which USCIS counts together for this form, ran between 215 and 18,779 a quarter. New applications fell from 43,480 to 20,159 a quarter over the same year (USCIS all-forms reports). The January to March figure is low enough to suggest a processing pause rather than a change in standards; USCIS has not explained it.

For the whole of FY2024, by contrast, USCIS granted 18,040 affirmative cases, denied 420, referred 5,430 to immigration court and closed 105,200 (DHS OHSS). The asylum office denies few cases outright; its usual negative outcome is a referral, which starts the court process counted above.

Counting people rather than applications, the DHS Yearbook records 68,170 individuals granted asylum in FY2024: 35,840 by USCIS asylum offices and 32,330 by immigration judges. That is +245% above 2010 and +314% above the pandemic low of 16,450 in FY2021 (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Homeland Security Statistics). The FY2025 and FY2026 court figures above show the turn that came next.

Grants by nationality, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia, are in the companion report Asylum Outcomes for Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Central Asians.

Of the 69,393 completed court cases in FY2024 that began with a credible fear referral at the border, 29,655 (42.7%) ended with no asylum application ever filed, 23,626 ended without the application being decided, and 5,563 were granted against 4,191 denied (U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review). Among decisions on the merits, 57.0% were grants; among all outcomes, 8.0%.

In absentia orders against asylum applicants followed the same path: 3,203 in FY2016, 50,254 in FY2025 and 90,288 in the first nine months of FY2026 (U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review).

• 77% of asylum cases completed in FY2025 had a representative of record; the national figure for all completed cases was 55% (U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review).
• Court-level and judge-level figures, the backlog and in absentia orders for all case types are in U.S. Immigration Court Statistics 2026.