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The White House endorsed an analysis this Friday that describes the immigration reforms of the Trump administration as the closure of the "biggest legal loophole in immigration" in the country, referring to the systematic dismantling of the U.S. asylum system.
The article, published by the American Mature Citizens Association (AMAC), argues that the asylum system—originally designed as a safeguard for individuals fleeing specific state persecution—was transformed during the Obama and Biden administrations into a mechanism for mass migration, with judges approving applications at rates close to 50%, unilaterally expanding the definition of "persecution" to include widespread poverty or domestic instability.
The White House shared the analysis with the message that Americans finally have a "determined president" committed to defending the fundamental principle that America belongs to the American people, not to millions seeking to evade our laws.
The post was published after it was revealed that a
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that federal immigration law does not allow Trump to deport immigrants through "expedited removal procedures he created," nor to suspend their right to apply for asylum.
Migration crisis: some data
According to data from the Cato Institute, legal entries of asylum seekers at ports in the southwest fell by 99.9% between December 2024 and February 2025, decreasing from nearly 40,000 per month to only 26.
The asylum approval rate plummeted to 7% in February 2026, compared to approximately 50% recorded under previous administrations, with a nationwide denial rate of 79.6%.
Among the specific measures implemented is the dismantling of the CBP One application —which under Biden operated as a digital appointment system for border entries— rebranded as CBP Home to facilitate voluntary self-deportations.
The administration also dismissed more than 100 immigration judges and appointed 143 new ones, many of whom were former prosecutors from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or military lawyers, reported The New York Times on April 9.
The analysis indicates that the dismissed judges had approval ratings of 46%, those who remained had a rating of 15%, and the new appointments are approximately at 6%.
The Department of Homeland Security also proposed a regulation in February to extend the waiting period for work permits for asylum seekers from 180 to 365 days, thus removing the economic incentive that, according to the administration, drove fraudulent applications.
The administration also implemented mandatory detention for asylum seekers and suspended the Diversity Visa Lottery, while immigrant visas for permanent residents fell by approximately 43% compared to 2024, with a ban extended to citizens of 92 countries.
The impact on Cubans is particularly severe: the asylum approval rate for citizens of the island dropped to 7% nationwide and to 5.2% in states like Arizona, where only 19 out of 365 applications were approved in February 2026.
In parallel, the asylum applications from Cubans in Brazil surpassed 41,900 in 2025, an increase of 88% compared to the previous year, reflecting the closure of the American route for thousands of migrants fleeing the dictatorship.
The stated objective of the administration, as reported by The New York Times, is to "prioritize those who are genuinely seeking refuge from danger, rather than those trying to skip the line to enter the United States," in a context where the U.S. recorded negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least fifty years.
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