Refugee law does not get all that much attention in the blogosphere, even on the immigration-related blogs, probably because the numbers of refugees and asylees are so low in the context of U.S. immigration as a whole.   This week, though, there was a little discussion of a new study showing that asylum-seekers’ success rates have gone up to about 50%.  The study also confirms that asylum requests (that is, requests for refugee status made by people who are in the United States already) continue to fall.  The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog mischaracterized the study to some extent, asserting that “Recently revealed statistics show that illegal immigration is down. But another method of gaining residence in the U.S. is up: seeking political asylum,” when, as I just explained, asylum requests actually continue to fall.  It is only the rate of success that has gone up.

The increased success rate is surely due to the fact that more asylum seekers are finding legal representation:  as the study explains, unrepresented asylum seekers have a success rate of about 11%, while those with attorneys have about a 54% chance of winning asylum.  The study also shows that the dramatic disparities in grant rates by different judges continues (e.g., in the New York Immigration Court, judges’ asylum grant rates ranged from 6% to 70%).

In any event, the other statistics referred to in that WSJ Law Blog post are from a Pew Hispanic Center study showing a dramatic decline in the population of undocumented immigrants in the United States over the past few years.