Economic opportunity is not an accepted rationale for granting asylum. As of 2016, based on data from 2000 - 2016, only 7.4% of asylum claimants were actually approved. The majority of the time was because the claimants could not prove that they were coming except for economic opportunity. Recently, liberal legal aid societies have been working to get more illegals approved for asylum. The data showed in 2017 about 20% of claimants were ultimately approved, so their cynical gambit may be working.
The graph above shows asylum applications in the United States, broken out by applicants originating from somewhere in Latin America and applicants from the rest of the world. The lion’s share of Latin American applications comes from the Central American countries.
As you can see, asylum claims have risen in recent years for all origins, but
especially for Latin American origins. While once these countries were a minority of claims of asylum, in 2016, the most recent available data, they were a substantial majority.
This is a cause for concern, because, as of 2016, of all Latin American cases pending in 2000 or applied since then, just 7.4 percent have been approved, compared to 35 percent for other countries. The numbers are even worse for the Central American countries, at 4.7 percent, and Mexico, at 3 percent.
