Asylum 1

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Underthe rule, certain individuals who enter the United States through its southwest land border or adjacent coastal borders are presumed to be ineligible for asylum, unless they can demonstrate an exception to the rule or rebut the presumption. Individuals are encouraged to use lawful, safe, and orderly pathways to come to the United States.

If you are eligible for asylum you may be permitted to remain in the United States. To apply for asylum affirmatively or defensively, file a Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, within 1 year of your arrival to the United States. Visit our Obtaining Asylum in the United States page for more information on affirmative and defensive filings. There is no fee to apply for asylum.

You may include your spouse and children who are physically present in the United States as dependents on your affirmative or defensive asylum application at the time you file or at any time until a final decision is made on your application. To include your child as a dependent on your application, the child must be under 21 years old and unmarried. For more information see our Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal page.

If you were placed in expedited removal proceedings, you received a positive credible fear determination, and USCIS retained your asylum application for further consideration in an Asylum Merits Interview, please visit our Asylum Merits Interview with USCIS: Processing After a Positive Credible Fear Determination page.

If you have an asylum application pending with us, you can check the status of your application at Case Status Online. You will need the receipt number that we provided you after you filed your application.

To apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) based on your pending asylum application under the (c)(8) category, you may file a Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, 150 days after you file your asylum application. You are not eligible to receive an EAD until your asylum application has been pending for at least another 30 days, for a total of 180 days, commonly referred to as the 180-Day Asylum EAD Clock.

Delays that you request or cause while your asylum application is pending with an asylum office or with the Executive Office for Immigration Review do not count toward the 150-day waiting period or the 180-day eligibility period.

If you are required to receive and acknowledge your asylum decision at an asylum office but you fail to appear, your 180-Day Asylum EAD Clock will stop, and you may be ineligible to receive employment authorization. If your case has been referred to an Immigration Court, your 180-Day Asylum EAD Clock will not start again until your first hearing with an immigration judge.

For more information regarding employment authorization and applicant-caused delays, see The 180-Day Asylum EAD Clock Notice (PDF, 375.08 KB). If we approve your application for employment authorization based on your pending asylum application, your EAD will be valid for up to 5 years.

If you are granted asylum, you are immediately authorized to work. (Some asylees choose to obtain EADs for convenience or identification purposes, but an EAD is not necessary to work if you are an asylee.)

ALERT: If you are applying for your initial (first) employment authorization based on having a pending asylum application, you may be a member of the class action case, Rosario v. USCIS, Case No. C15-0813JLR (W.D. Wash. July 26, 2018). To learn more, visit the Rosario Class Action page.

To participate remotely, they must complete Form G-1593, Certification by Attorney or Accredited Representative for Remote Participation in an Affirmative Asylum and/or NACARA 203 Interview (PDF, 248.05 KB), and submit it to the asylum office where we have scheduled your interview.

If you are granted asylum you may petition to bring your spouse and children to the United States by filing a Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition. To include your child on your application, the child must be under 21 and unmarried.

You may be approved for a Green Card 1 year after being granted asylum. To apply for a Green Card, file a Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status. You must submit a separate Form I-485 application packet for yourself and, if applicable, for each family member who received derivative asylum based on your application.

Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

Refugee status is a form of protection that may be granted to people who meet the definition of refugee and who are of special humanitarian concern to the United States. Refugees are generally people outside of their country who are unable or unwilling to return home because they fear serious harm. For a legal definition of refugee, see section 101(a)(42) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed (deported) to a country where he or she fears persecution or harm. Under U.S. law, people who flee their countries because they fear persecution can apply for asylum. If they are granted asylum, this gives them protection and the right to stay in the United States. Those who are granted asylum are called asylees.

Note: According to U.S. immigration law, a refugee is someone who has been resettled to the United States through the U.S. resettlement program. This is a separate process than asylum. For more information on resettled refugees, please see Rights and Duties of Refugees.

Persecution can be harm or threats of harm to you or your family or to people similar to you. A person can also obtain asylum if he or she has suffered persecution in his or her country in the past.

EU countries have a shared responsibility to welcome asylum seekers in a dignified manner, ensuring that they are treated fairly and their case is examined following uniform standards. This ensures that, no matter where an applicant applies, the outcome will be similar. Procedures must be fair, effective throughout the EU, and impervious to abuse.

With this in mind, since 1999, the EU has established a Common European Asylum System (CEAS). In 2020, the European Commission proposed to reform the system through a comprehensive approach to migration and asylum policy based on three main pillars:

Between 1999 and 2005, six legislative instruments establishing minimum standards for asylum were adopted: the Eurodac Regulation, the Temporary Protection Directive, the Reception of Asylum Seekers Directive, the Dublin Regulation replacing the 1990 Dublin Convention, the Qualification Directive and the Asylum Procedures Directive.

Along with the Plan, the Commission presented a set of reformed EU asylum laws, which were completed in 2013. Among the novelties, the European Asylum Support Office was established specifically to assist Member States in implementing EU asylum law and to enhance the practical cooperation.

In 2015, the unprecedented high number of arrivals of refugees and irregular migrants in the EU exposed a series of deficiencies and gaps in Union policies on asylum. Therefore, the European Commission proposed in May and July 2016 a third package of seven pieces of legislation with the aim to move towards a fully efficient, fair and humane asylum policy which can function effectively also in times of high migratory pressure.

In 2017, the European Parliament and the Council reached a broad political agreement on five out of the seven proposals, namely as regards the setting-up of a fully-fledged European Union Asylum Agency, the reform of Eurodac, the review of the Reception Conditions Directive, the Qualification Regulation, and the EU Resettlement framework. However, the Council did not reach a common position on the reform of the Dublin system and the Asylum Procedure Regulation. While in 2020 the Commission is proposing amendments to some of these proposals, it has been supporting a quick adoption of the proposals on which a political agreement has been reached by the co-legislators. These proposals include:

Replacing the Qualification Directive (Directive 2011/95/EU) with a regulation, aims at achieving more convergence in asylum decision-making. The regulation would change current optional rules providing common criteria for recognising asylum applicants to obligatory rules, by further clarifying and specifying the content of international protection, in particular regarding the duration of residence permits and social rights, and by establishing rules aimed at preventing unauthorised movements.

By replacing the Qualification Directive with a regulation, protection standards will be harmonised across the EU, by creating greater convergence of recognition rates and forms of protection. The new regulation will introduce stricter rules sanctioning unauthorised movements and strengthening integration incentives for beneficiaries of international protection. The new regulation will clarify the criteria for granting international protection in particular by making the application of the internal protection alternative compulsory for Member States as part of the assessment of the application for international protection. The content of protection will also clarify the rights and obligation of the beneficiary of international protection.

The Reception Conditions Directive will ensure asylum seekers receive decent conditions throughout the EU, reduce incentives for abuse and increase the possibility for asylum seekers to be self-reliant.

Member States will be obliged to have contingency plans in place to ensure sufficient reception capacity at all times, including in times of disproportionate pressure. Asylum seekers will be provided with full reception conditions only in the Member State responsible for their asylum application. This will help prevent asylum seekers from travelling from Member State to Member State.

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