Denials for asylum seekers are becoming more common, according to an immigration attorney

Steven Thal has spent decades in immigration court. Recently, he said he shed a rare tear as a judge denied asylum to a family who say they came to Minnesota to escape sexual violence and extortion. 

Thal, an immigration attorney whose office is based in Minnetonka, said that these kinds of denials are becoming more common. According to data from Mobile Pathways, which tracks asylum cases, immigration judges at Fort Snelling in Minnesota approved asylum in about 13 percent of cases during the four-year period that President Joe Biden was in office. The approval rate has dropped to two percent during President Trump's second term. 

According to Thal and other attorneys, it's the result of new judges installed by the Trump administration and new rules that create far narrower definitions of what constitutes an appropriate asylum claim. 

It means that cases that would have gotten approved in the past are now ending with deportation orders. In the case of a Guatemalan mother and her daughters, Thal said that he is planning to appeal. He shared a portion of their asylum claim with WCCO, detailing how a local gang in Guatemala had threatened their lives. 

"One day four men, some with their faces covered and carrying firearms, forced their way into our home. What was frightening was they knew our names and the names of my children. They threatened us with death, and I noticed their weapons had silencers, which meant if they shot us no one would hear," the mother wrote, describing how gang members beat her husband and "sexually molested" her daughter. 

"We're no longer going to be seen as hope for many coming here to escape persecution that they've experienced in their home countries," Thal said, "it becomes an issue in terms of human rights. Is this the country that we want to be, or can we be something better?" 

The barriers to asylum status come as the Trump administration alleges that immigrants have long taken advantage of the system. According to a memo obtained by CBS News this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys now have orders to aggressively pursue administrative fraud cases against immigration lawyers accused of filing false asylum claims, the latest step in the administration's push to speed up removals, expand enforcement and challenge the legal infrastructure around immigration. 

"Now, thanks to this directive, ICE attorneys have greater authority to enforce the law and STOP the abuse of our asylum system by illegal aliens and attorneys," a DHS government account posted on social media without citing any specific evidence. 

CBS News found that the government has long prosecuted organized asylum-fraud schemes. In 2023, federal prosecutors in New York City announced guilty pleas by immigration attorneys accused of preparing fraudulent asylum applications and affidavits and coaching clients to lie under oath. In 2021, a Florida man posing as an immigration attorney was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after prosecutors said he filed hundreds of fraudulent asylum applications. And in 2019, an immigration attorney in Queens, New York, was sentenced to five years in prison for operating an asylum-fraud ring.

Karen Bryan, an immigration attorney in St. Louis Park, said that she and others in her line of work need to vigorously vet asylum claims before they bring them before a judge. 

"I've never had a frivolous or fraudulent case," Bryan said. 

Thal said that the same applied for his office, noting that attorneys would not stake their reputation on a fraudulent case.