National Review’s September 2026 issue tackles America’s asylum system with a cover piece arguing that humanitarian immigration policies should be fundamentally rethought to prioritize American interests. Senior writer Dan McLaughlin’s article, titled “America’s Asylum System Is Broken,” contends that asylum and refugee law, designed after World War II to address Nazi-era persecution, has evolved into a system disconnected from its original purpose and disconnected from the nation’s interests.
McLaughlin traces how asylum law emerged from the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which was time-limited to people displaced before that year by Nazi persecution. The Cold War then reshaped the system into a tool for accepting political refugees from communist nations, many of whom brought valuable skills and shared democratic values with the United States. By the 1980s, the Reagan-era Refugee Act of 1980 expanded definitions to include anyone with “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
The current state of the asylum system reveals the scope of the challenge. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, as of August 2026, approximately 2.3 million asylum cases are pending in immigration court, representing two-thirds of the overall immigration court backlog of 3.5 million cases. Processing times have stretched dramatically: the average affirmative asylum case takes more than 1,278 days to resolve, according to recent data.
Grant rates for asylum claims have collapsed in 2026. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), as of June 2026 the national asylum grant rate had fallen to just 5.5 percent, while denial rates surged to 94.1 percent. This represents a sharp decline from earlier years: in August 2025, about 19.2 percent of asylum seekers were granted protection, according to immigration court data. The approval rate has fallen even more dramatically in some jurisdictions—Minnesota immigration courts approved only 5.5 percent of asylum cases in 2026, according to reporting from Minnesota Public Radio.
McLaughlin’s article argues that the system has become vulnerable to abuse. He notes that asylum lawyers have learned to exploit ambiguities in the law, particularly the undefined term “particular social group,” which a U.N. representative added “offhand” in 1951. The Obama and Biden administrations extended asylum eligibility to include victims of domestic violence in countries where governments do not police it—a category that McLaughlin contends serves no U.S. foreign policy interest.
The article also examines Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which allows nationals of designated countries to remain in the United States during emergencies. By 2025, 1.3 million people held TPS status, with 935,570 from just two countries—Venezuela and Haiti—and 322,500 from three others. Somalia has been on the TPS list for 35 years, Haiti since an earthquake in 2010. McLaughlin argues that these programs systematically prefer people from the most dysfunctional societies, selecting for those “least likely to be assimilated into the American creed.”
The September issue’s focus on immigration policy reflects broader political debate heading into the 2026 midterm elections. In March 2026, the American Immigration Lawyers Association reported that 66 percent of Americans disapproved of a blanket ban on asylum processing, suggesting public concern cuts across ideological lines. Yet asylum denial rates have continued to climb under current policies, with immigration judges turning down applications at rates exceeding 79 percent in early 2026 and reaching 94 percent by June.
McLaughlin proposes several reforms: making “Remain in Mexico” law rather than policy, strictly time-limiting TPS designations, barring asylum claims from people who passed through multiple nations without seeking protection elsewhere, and permanently excluding asylum seekers found to have made meritless claims. He also calls for tightening asylum criteria by eliminating the “particular social group” category and non-state-backed persecution claims, arguing these changes would allow faster resolution of cases while better serving American interests.
Sources
- National Review — Dan McLaughlin’s cover article “America’s Asylum System Is Broken” in the September 2026 issue, published September 2, 2026
- Council on Foreign Relations — Data on asylum backlog size and composition as of August 2026
- SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) — Average processing time for affirmative asylum cases (1,278 days)
- Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) — Asylum grant rates and denial rates as of June 2026 (5.5% grant, 94.1% denial)
- Minnesota Public Radio — Minnesota immigration court asylum approval rate of 5.5% in 2026
- American Immigration Lawyers Association — Public opinion polling on asylum policy (66% disapproval of blanket ban) from March 2026
