The End of Asylum
Key takeaways
- This article is one of 10 essays in the Summer 2026 print issue, The End of the World as We Know It.
- On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation prohibiting all refugees arriving at the U.S. southern border from applying for asylum.
- The proclamation was a bald-faced attempt to close the border to asylum-seekers writ large, effectively a death certificate for the right to seek asylum in the United States.
This article is one of 10 essays in the Summer 2026 print issue, The End of the World as We Know It.
On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation prohibiting all refugees arriving at the U.S. southern border from applying for asylum. Claiming that the “situation at the southern border qualifies as an invasion,” the order meant that all individuals attempting to come to the United States would be categorically refused entry, even if they risked being tortured or persecuted upon return to their home countries—a blatant violation of U.S. immigration law. Accompanying guidance distributed to U.S. asylum officers instructed them not to “ask specific fear questions” required to assess whether individuals had fled their nations out of a credible fear of harm. Only those who demonstrated fear without prompting, either verbally or otherwise, through “hysteria, trembling, shaking, unusual behavior, changes in tone of voice, incoherent speech patterns, panic attacks, or an unusual level of silence”—according to language from guidance issued by the Biden administration—could be granted further assessment, but their petitions would also almost always ultimately be denied.
The proclamation was a bald-faced attempt to close the border to asylum-seekers writ large, effectively a death certificate for the right to seek asylum in the United States. That right has been in decline for many years around the globe, its force and meaning gravely diminished alongside the worldwide retrenchment of human rights. But over the past year, states across the global north have taken further steps to permanently degrade asylum protections, hardening borders and revising immigration policies to curtail the already meager affordances that imperiled groups have relied on for decades. If their efforts are successful, the right to seek asylum—a fundamental freedom and a critical element of the postwar system—will become an artifact of a bygone era, one of many casualties of the emerging anti-liberal global order.