How Draconian Are the Changes to US Asylum Law?: A Monthly Time Series Analysis (1990–2010)

How have recent changes to US asylum law altered who gets asylum? We investigate whether the changes wrought by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the Real ID Act changed the decision making of immigration judges in asylum cases. We find, contrary to much of the commentary surrounding both IIRIRA and Real ID, that immigration judges became more likely to grant applicants asylum. Furthermore, we find that those applicants who are most at-risk of persecution in the countries they are fleeing are also the applicants most likely to be granted relief—a fact that became increasingly true with the implementation of IIRIRA and Real ID.