Asylum system needs a lot of work

Our asylum system is broken, according to Alejandro Mayorkas. He should know. As Homeland Security Secretary, he is in charge of immigration. He claims the system is broken, and is calling on Congress to fix it. Under our asylum system, refugees from other countries, many fleeing oppression or violence in their home countries, seek to become citizens of the United States. The problem is there is too much red tape, which is leading to backlog of cases of those seeking a better life in the United States.  Currently there are more than 2.1 million asylum seekers whose cases are backlogged. It is estimated it takes 4.2 years to process the typical asylum claim. Clearly, the system isn’t working. President Biden has hired more than 150 new immigration judges to try to reduce the backlog. But still the backlog is growing and it is estimated that the administration would have to double the current number of existing immigration judges just to keep up with the volume of cases. And even if it doubled its current number of annual hearings, it would still take more than 4 years to eliminate the backlog of cases. Congress should step in and ensure that those seeking asylum in the U.S. can get fair and prompt hearings so their cases can be decided more quickly and we can fix this broken system.