On Thursday, President Trump gave a lengthy speech at the White House on his favorite pre-election theme: immigration. He called the migrant caravan a “crisis at our southern border” and promised an executive order to restrict those seeking asylum in the U.S. Part of his argument against those claiming asylum is, in the president’s words, “They never show up at the trials. They never come back, they’re never seen again.” But for the most part, that’s not true — and data from the Justice Department show it.
DOJ publishes statistical reviews of its actions, including those on immigration. Instead of just taking the word of politicians, anyone who wants to can engage in that democratic exercise of taking advantage of government transparency can look up the numbers themselves.
So, what do statistics published by the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review have to say on how many asylum seekers show up for trials?
In 2017, the vast majority, 89 percent, of those claiming asylum showed up for their trials, meaning that decisions were not made “in absentia.” In 2016, 91 percent showed up, and in 2015, 93 percent of asylum decisions were not made in absentia, meaning that the asylum seeker was, indeed, present.
Those numbers are clear. In the report there’s even a helpful chart showing that most of the people applying for asylum come to their court dates. Despite Trump's words, asylum seekers are most often seen again and they make it a priority to follow the laws and appear for their hearing.
That also makes a lot of sense.
Those seeking asylum are making a legal claim under U.S. and international law on the basis of their safety and accepting the burden of proof to establish their claim as a legally defined refugee. According to U.S. law, specifically Title 8, Section 1158 of the U.S. Code: “To establish that the applicant is a refugee within the meaning of such section, applicant must establish that race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reasons for persecuting the applicant.”
Under U.S. law, “the testimony of the applicant may be sufficient to sustain the applicant’s burden without corroboration, but only if the applicant satisfies the trier of fact that the applicant’s testimony is credible, is persuasive, and refers to specific facts sufficient to demonstrate the applicant is a refugee.”
Those laws mean that an applicant for asylum has every reason to show up as their testimony is likely key to securing refugee status and safety from the threats they fled.
Finally, for a bit of context on the larger status of the migrant caravan — as Shepard Smith of Fox News explained on Wednesday: “There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”
That’s unquestionably true. The much talked about caravan headed for the U.S. border won't be anywhere near the U.S. border by Election Day; the military, at the enormous sum of up to $110 million, is not needed to counter them; and the caravan doesn’t pose a threat to homeland security.
As Trump fixates his rhetoric on the caravan and calls for a series of unconstitutional tough-on-immigration measures, backed up with arguments that statistics from his own administration disputes, that makes a clear and pragmatic solution to the real questions of illegal immigration all but impossible.
A robust debate about immigration policy in the United State is clearly important. But that debate, including asylum, must be based on facts — not falsehoods in service of a narrative that circumvents the just application of laws.