US pushes overhaul of global asylum rules, citing widespread abuse

Trump had earlier said to the global leaders at UN that uncontrolled migration is harming nations, false asylum claims must end, and open borders "experiment" should stop

By Eric Martin

 

The US is starting a campaign to revamp international asylum rules that it says are outdated and frequently abused, after President Donald Trump decried “the crisis of uncontrolled migration” during his speech at the United Nations this week. 

The Trump administration in the coming months will bring together various nations to develop shared asylum principles, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Thursday. Speaking at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Landau described the current system as too often manipulated by people looking for better economic conditions rather than a refuge from persecution.

 

“We have to recognize that the asylum system around the world has been subject to abuse if, in fact, we want to save the asylum system itself,” Landau said, speaking alongside officials from Panama, Liberia, Kosovo and Bangladesh.

 

Among the standards that must be acknowledged, Landau said, are the right of every nation to control its borders and that people aren’t entitled to seek asylum in the nation of their choosing. Refugee status should also be temporary, countries themselves rather than transnational bodies should determine where conditions are safe, and all governments must be willing to accept the swift return of their citizens, he added. 

 

The UN’s refugee agency estimates that 42.7 million people globally were refugees at the end of 2024. While the rejection rate for asylum claims varies across time and source, in recent years in the US it has ranged from about two thirds to three quarters.

 

Trump in his speech in New York on Tuesday told a hall full of fellow global leaders that their “countries are going to hell” because of uncontrolled migration, and said migrants had “lodged false asylum claims or claimed refugee status for illegitimate reasons” and should in many cases “be immediately sent home.”

 

“When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum seekers” Trump said, who “repaid kindness with crime, it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders.”