Research question & overview
The border is treated as the beginning of a distributed decision process. An encounter, an individual, an application and a court proceeding are different units of observation. Combining them obscures where workloads accumulate.
The study uses public data from CBP, USCIS, EOIR, GAO and DHS oversight bodies. Its comparisons are descriptive: the available records do not allow the same cohort to be followed from the border to a final decision.
Its proposed approach emphasizes joint resource planning, the age and readiness of cases, and cohort reporting. Changes in workload are not attributed to a single policy or administration.
Read the work
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.7541521
Bibliographic reference
Sergei Otnelchenko, Igor Leonov. (2026). The U.S. Asylum System Amid Heavy Border Workloads, FY2021–FY2024. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7541521