(UNITED STATES) — A federal court ordered USCIS on June 5, 2026 to resume processing asylum applications from 40 countries that had been blocked under a partial pause, the latest flashpoint in a system-wide tightening of U.S. asylum policy under the Trump administration.

The ruling came two months after USCIS announced on March 30, 2026 that it would restart asylum adjudications following a complete halt in late 2025. The agency had carved out applicants from 40 nations for continued suspension. The government has appealed the June 5 order, leaving the practical pace of the restart uncertain.

Those developments sit atop a broader squeeze on the U.S. asylum system. Immigration Courts are processing cases faster than at any point under the prior administration, but grant rates have collapsed and backlogs remain near record highs.

TRAC reported that asylum decisions in Immigration Court peaked at more than 12,000 completions per month in April and May 2025, roughly double the 6,000 to 7,000 monthly completions seen previously. The surge began in March 2025, when judges decided 10,933 asylum cases and denied 76%, both record-setting figures.

By August 2025, the asylum grant rate in Immigration Court had fallen to 19.2%, down from 38.2% in August 2024. Faster processing has not translated into more protection but into a substantially lower chance of winning asylum before a judge.

The Immigration Court backlog stood at about 3.7 million cases in 2026, according to TRAC. EOIR data placed the pending caseload at more than 1.7 million people waiting for hearings. The figures differ because sources measure backlog and pending cases differently, but both point to a system under strain.

Average wait times have stretched to nearly 900 days, or about 2.5 years, TRAC reported. Other 2026 reporting placed the typical pending file at about 636 days, a figure that appears to reflect a different measurement or jurisdictional snapshot rather than the full national average. A March 2025 baseline had cited a backlog of 3,619,257 cases and an average processing time of 2.84 years.

Immigration delay statistics vary depending on whether a source is measuring total pending cases, case completion times, asylum-only caseloads, or a specific court group. The overall direction is not in dispute: the court system is still absorbing millions of cases, and the waiting period for many applicants remains measured in years, not months.

Delays compound every other pressure on applicants. Many already wait years for a hearing or interview, and proposed work-permit restrictions would extend the period asylum seekers must wait before they can lawfully work.

A Trump administration proposal published in June 2026 would suspend acceptance of asylum work-permit applications until USCIS can decide asylum cases within an average of 180 days. The regulation would also extend the work-authorization waiting period from 180 days to 365 days after filing.

If enacted, the change would sharply affect the ability of asylum seekers to support themselves while waiting for decisions. The current 180-day waiting period already leaves many without income for months. Doubling it to 365 days would intensify the pressure created by long backlogs, because many applicants already wait years for a hearing or interview.

The proposed rule intersects with the USCIS adjudication pause in a particular way. Because USCIS stopped making decisions on all asylum cases in late 2025, the agency cannot meet any 180-day average completion benchmark. Under the proposed regulation, that failure would trigger a continued suspension of work-permit acceptance, linking employment authorization to a processing speed the agency has not demonstrated it can achieve.

The June 5 court order adds another layer.