Should we end asylum?

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Matthew Yglesias wants to end asylum.

Asylum is a broadly reactive and procedural mechanism that takes control over who gets to enter the U.S. (and how many of them) out of the hands of politicians and the people who elected them. On a new episode of The Argument, Matt argues that the post-WWII asylum framework is not just politically untenable but practically unworkable.

I, true to form, disagree.

Let’s not kid ourselves, asylum is a huge political and policy problem for liberals. Anyone who takes seriously democratic legitimacy, economic growth, and basic human rights can’t pretend the backlash to Trump will fix the politics of immigration.

But I think giving up on asylum actually undersells the difficulty of the problem. People want to come to the U.S., and most Americans are open to legal, orderly immigration when they believe the system is working for them, not for foreigners. How do we produce that system?

“Immigration policy should be designed to maximize the national interest, and the proceduralism and reactiveness of asylum does not fit into that very well,” Matt argues.

He’s right about the first part, dead wrong about the last.

Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

The transcript will be after the paywall in this post for paying subscribers.

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Corrections:

• At 0:17:13, Jerusalem says 2024 U.S. asylum grant rates for “Afghans, Syrians, Cameroonians, Eritreans, and Venezuelans” were at or above 75%. TRAC data shows this was true for Afghans (88.4%) and Eritreans (85.3%), but slightly higher than the rates for Cameroonians (74.4%), Syrians (68.9%), and Venezuelans (64.5%).

• At 0:17:59, Matt says “I’m sure people who want to move there [the Dominican Republic] from here [the U.S.] have good reasons for it. He means people who want to move from the Dominican Republic to the U.S.

• At 0:43:00, Jerusalem said the hiring rate in March 2022 was 7.4%, which was actually the job opening rate. The hiring rate was 4.4%.

• At 0:45:00, Matt says Trump has expanded “H-1A visa programs,” when he means H-2A.

• At 0:50:06, Jerusalem says that “I think a series of extremely specific and narrow programs is actually incentivizing this gaming the system rather than incentivizing it.” She means those programs incentivize gaming the system rather than addressing it.

Show notes:

• Border Act of 2024, sponsored by Sens. Chris Murphy, James Lankford, and Kyrsten Sinema, which would have set aside funding for immigration judges and asylum officers in an effort to get processing down to 90 days: Congressional Record, Sen. Murphy page, GovTrack bill text

• Manhattan Institute study arguing that around $1 billion a year for new judges and asylum officers would solve the asylum crisis: Manhattan Institute report

• ICE budget document showing an $11.3 billion budget in 2026 (not counting extra funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill): DHS file (PDF)

• One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, book by Matthew Yglesias making the case for rapidly increasing the U.S. population through immigration, in an effort to reframe the conversation in a more patriotic way: Goodreads page, Amazon page

• Report showing 84% of Americans support resettling Afghans who helped troops during the war to resettle in the U.S.: With Honor PAC report

• Polling showing 78% of Americans supported admitting up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees from the war in 2022: Gallup report

• Polling showing 66% of Americans supported admitting Kosovar refugees in 1999: Gallup report

• “Europeans’ support for refugees of varying background is stable over time,” study by Kirk Bansak, Jens Hainmueller, and Dominik Hangartner showing general support for admitting asylum seekers in 15 European countries: Nature article

• “Why America is so much better than Europe at immigration,” article co-written by Alexander Kustov and Kelsey Piper about the differences between U.S. and European approaches to immigration: The Argument article

• In Our Interest: How Democracies Can Make Immigration Popular, book by Alexander Kustov examining immigration issues through a strict framework of self-interest: Columbia University Press page, Amazon page

• Report showing that U.S. asylum seekers from five countries had grant rates at less than 20%: Dominican Republic at 11%, Mexico at 16.6%, Colombia at 19.3%, Ecuador at 19.7%, and Brazil at 19.7%: TRAC report

• Coverage of Bush-era emphasis on border security: Bush White House archived page, CBS News article

• “Democrats can’t hide from immigration forever,” 2025 article by Matt Yglesias that described the CHNV immigration parole program as having reduced irregular migration and border chaos: Slow Boring article

• Article cited by Matt about Nigerian migrants in the U.K. being coached on how to appear gay in order to get asylum: BBC article

• Coverage of Venezuela hitting 10,000,000% inflation: CNBC article

• Coverage showing over 70% of Venezuelans are still in their country: UNHCR page, N-IUSSP article

• Coverage showing around 70% of Syrians stayed in the country even through the war: MSF release

• Coverage showing over 90% of Sudan’s population remains in the country despite famine, civil war, and internal displacement: International Organization for Migration article, Al Jazeera article

• “How Deterrence Policies Create Border Chaos,” 2023 article by Jerusalem Demsas arguing that deterrence policies in immigration don’t work: The Atlantic article

• Chart showing nearly half as many U.S. job openings in 2026 as in 2022: FRED data

• Chart showing U.S. hiring rate at 3.1% in February 2026 and 4.4% in March 2022: FRED data

• Quinnipiac poll showing Biden hitting 33% approval in January 2022: The Hill article

• Coverage of Trump expanding the H-2A visa program for guest agricultural workers: Newsweek article, Time article

• Coverage of Biden-era labor regulations, which made it more difficult to get an au pair, among other things: The Washington Post article, The Wall Street Journal article, Cato Institute commentary

• Coverage of Australia having a higher share of foreign-born residents than the U.S. does: McCrindle Research article

• Coverage of Australia letting in more immigrants, relative to the existing population, than the U.S. does: NPR article, Cato Institute article

• Coverage of the creation of the CBP One app, which made it possible to set up an appointment with an asylum officer ahead of time: Los Angeles Times article, CBS News article

• Peer Review: “Germs in the Family: The Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Intra-Household Disease Spread,” by N. Meltem Daysal, Hui Ding, Maya Rossin-Slater, and Hannes Schwandt, showing younger siblings have much higher rates of hospitalization due to respiratory conditions contracted from older siblings: NBER working paper (PDF)

• Study showing that households with at least two children have an illness at least 50% of the time: Clinical Infectious Diseases article

• Studies showing that, on average, younger siblings…

  • Have higher delinquency rates: NBER working paper

  • Have less educational attainment: Intelligence study

  • Have lower lifetime earnings: PNAS Nexus study, The Times article

• Studies showing that, on average, winter birth dates are…

  • Slightly worse for life outcomes (higher risk of schizophrenia, asthma, or cardiovascular disease): Current Biology article, The Lancet article, JAMIA article

  • Slightly better for life outcomes (longer lifespan): PNAS article, The Science of Nature article, PLoS One article, Demographic Research article

• Next week’s reading: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan: Goodreads page, Amazon page

(Illustration by The Argument, image by David Dee Delgado/Stringer via Getty)