The Biden administration is boasting its border policies are now cutting illegal immigration, but a new report has exposed a veritable shell game that is effectively covering its "mass amnesty" designs by making the numbers of asylum cases disappear.
More than 350,000 migrants cases have "terminated without a decision on the merits of their asylum claim" by the Biden administration if individuals did not have a criminal record or were not deemed a threat, the New York Post reported Sunday.
Those illegals are removed from the legal record and are not required to check in with authorities, allowing illegals to live "indefinitely" in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
"This is just a massive amnesty under the guise of prosecutorial discretion," Center for Immigration Studies' Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge, told the Post.
"You're basically allowing people who don't have a right to be in the United States to be here indefinitely."
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed the clandestine operation to the Post, urging the exposure of the increase of disappearing asylum cases.
"If the migrants, who ICE no longer controls or monitors, commit crimes after the dismissal, ICE will have to start all over and issue a new Notice to Appear in court and start the clock all over again," an unnamed ICE officer told the Post.
"It's starting to increase," a second ICE officer told paper. "Please let everyone know what's really going on."
It "happens all the time," a third ICE officer told the Post.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data shows exactly how the Biden administration has expanded the ostensible erasure of asylum cases to avert alarming mass illegal immigration numbers, according to the Post:
| Year |
Ordered Removed |
Granted Asylum |
Allowed to Remain |
| 2014 |
10,661 |
12,816 |
10,405 |
| 2015 |
10,607 |
12,220 |
15,185 |
| 2016 |
14,838 |
12,683 |
20,915 |
| 2017 |
22,580 |
14,631 |
11,436 |
| 2018 |
33,244 |
17,958 |
5,337 |
| 2019 |
52,223 |
24,109 |
4,746 |
| 2020 |
48,361 |
19,709 |
4,730 |
| 2021 |
17,999 |
13,773 |
18,119 |
| 2022 |
36,250 |
31,859 |
102,550 |
| 2023 |
52,440 |
43,113 |
149,305 |
| 2024 (through April) |
33,349 |
26,514 |
113,843 |
The backlog of asylum cases stands at 3.5 million, so removing 100,000 people a year off it makes the administration look better in an election cycle that could hinge on immigration policy contrasts, according to the report.
Notably, the Biden administration has also moved to hasten the removal of asylum cases, ruling in May the cases must be resolved in 180 days if they are ticketed to the Democrat-run sanctuary cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, according to the Post.