The administration of US President Donald Trump published on Monday a new regulation that allows it to refer nearly a third of potential asylum seekers directly to deportation proceedings, without conducting personal interviews to assess their applications.
US asylum law stipulates that asylum seekers be given a “reasonable opportunity” to present evidence that they have been persecuted in their home countries because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or because of their political views.
For more than three decades, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has affirmed that these procedures include the right of asylum seekers to have a personal interview, allowing them to explain the reasons for their fear of persecution and provide additional information that may not be included in written asylum applications, according to the Common Dreams platform.
But the new rule, which comes into effect on Tuesday, eliminates this right, and gives authorities the power to bypass the interview and refer applicants directly to immigration judges based solely on the documents submitted, which are often prepared without legal assistance or in a language that applicants do not fully understand.
According to reports, the Citizenship and Immigration Services Department acknowledged in the documents attached to the decision that personal interviews allow applicants to provide more details about their cases, but justified the move by citing the backlog of asylum files, arguing that continuing to conduct interviews for all applicants was no longer practical.
According to the new regulation, its goal is to “expedite the referral of certain foreigners to deportation proceedings” before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department body that oversees federal immigration courts.
Although the officials who consider these cases are called “judges,” they are subordinate to the executive branch and are appointed by the Attorney General without the need for Senate approval.
Critics of the new policy say the Trump administration chose to appoint judges who share its hardline approach to immigration. The administration promoted these positions as “deportation judges,” and The Washington Post reported that roughly two-thirds of the judges appointed through April 2026 have no experience in immigration law.
The data also showed that the percentage of asylum granted by immigration judges fell to less than 5% of cases in February 2026, compared to about 48% in 2024.
Last September, the US Department of Justice granted immigration judges broader powers to reject asylum applications they deem “legally deficient,” allowing for the deportation of applicants without full hearings.
These measures come as part of the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” campaign, which has faced criticism from human rights organizations for what they describe as violating due process guarantees for immigrants, by deporting some of them without prior notice or hearings, and detaining residents for years without giving them the opportunity to obtain bail or proper legal representation.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior researcher at the American Immigration Council, said the new rule would allow the Citizenship and Immigration Services to “reject hundreds of thousands of asylum claims without interviews and refer applicants directly to deportation proceedings.”
According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the new rule could affect approximately 444,724 asylum applications currently under consideration, in addition to approximately 132,000 new applications annually.
Reichlin-Melnick added: “This means that many will never get the chance to present and defend their case.”
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