TRAC Releases *New* Asylum Data Tools + Data on Gender, Age, and Language
It’s not every day that TRAC releases new immigration data tools. But today is one of those days. Today we released not one but TWO new interactive asylum tools while updating our existing asylum decisions tool. See TRAC’s announcement here.
This data is incredibly important for understanding how the asylum process works, how it impacts real people, and how it reflects (or fails to reflect) official government policy.
Briefly, here’s what’s new and updated below. Please check it out and help spread the word. No, seriously. If you could share these new tools on social media and in relevant listservs, that would be great. Tag TRAC on Twitter using the handle @TRACReports. I’m excited to see people start using them!
Let’s get into it.
NEW Asylum Filing Tool
The new asylum filing tool shows information about asylum cases when they were filed. That is, it shows that a certain number of cases were filed in, say, fiscal year 2018, then tracks what has happened in those cases (e.g. still pending, granted, denied, etc.). Pretty cool! Click here to view TRAC’s new asylum filings tool.
NEW Asylum Backlog Tool
The new asylum backlog tool shows information about asylum cases that are currently pending, as well as cases that were pending in the past at the end of each fiscal year. (Fiscal years run October to September.) Note the fine print below on this one. Click here to view TRAC’s new asylum backlog tool.
IMPROVED Asylum Decisions Tool
For years now, you—dear TRAC user,—have been able to view data on asylum cases in immigration court where a judge has ruled on the case. Users can view a variety of data on immigration court, nationality, grant or denial, and so on. But now you can also view three important new variables: language, age, and gender (note qualification below). And, in fact, all of the above tools *also* include these new variables, too, which is great. Click here to view TRAC’s updated asylum decisions tool.
Taken together, the three tools now allow for a more complete tracking of all asylum cases in immigration court, from filing, to pending, to completed. Note that asylum applications filed and approved by asylum officers at US Citizenship and Immigration Services are not included in the immigration court data.
And guess what? These tools even have new logos!
The Fine Print
There are two important qualifications about this data that are too important to skip. (See official ‘about the data’ page here.)
Pending asylum cases is an undercount. The asylum backlog tool which includes pending asylum cases is an undercount of all asylum cases for two reasons. First, there are delays in filing and in entering data into the court’s database. Second, people that are effectively asylum seekers (i.e. they are in court to pursue asylum) have not yet filed a full asylum application for entirely understandable reasons that it takes time to find an attorney and develop a robust application. Just keep those two things in mind.
Caution regarding the new gender data. As TRAC says in the ‘about the data’ pages, gender was only recently recorded in more than half of the cases, and still a significant fraction of cases have no gender recorded. So that just means you can’t go back and look at, say, 10 years of asylum outcomes for people identified as “women”, because too small of a percentage of cases even had reliable data.
This is my first time seeing TRAC develop and release new full-fledged immigration data tools (although I did play a role in developing the immigration ‘quick facts’ tools). I have to say, it has been such a rich learning experience and I am grateful to my brilliant colleagues for their work.
In Case You Missed It
Inside Immigration Journalism Panel TOMORROW
Tomorrow evening Cornell University is hosting an extremely interesting panel on immigration journalism. I’m definitely attending. REGISTER HERE. Here’s the synopsis:
“With more people displaced on the planet today than at any point in modern human history, as well as bitterly divisive politics and a decimated journalism industry in the United States and beyond — what is, or should be, the role of the immigration reporter in shaping our politics and our policy? A conversation between immigration journalists and authors Sonia Nazario and Nadja Drost, moderated by Molly O'Toole '09, Distinguished Visiting Journalist in the College of Arts & Sciences.”
Don’t Miss Yesterday’s Robust Immigration Newsletter
I produced and shared a more thorough newsletter—the most thorough to date!—on immigration news yesterday that you can check out here. If the response is positive, I’ll keep doing this sort of thing—so let me know what you think.
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