Asylum Officer

What It Means

Asylum officers are USCIS employees in the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate (RAIO) who adjudicate protection-based applications. To become an asylum officer, candidates complete the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Combined Training Course (RAIOCTC), a roughly 5-week foundational course covering international and domestic refugee law, followed by asylum-specific training on interview techniques, country conditions, and legal standards. Asylum officers work out of 8 regional asylum offices (Arlington, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, and San Francisco, with additional sub-offices) and several border processing centers. Their primary adjudicatory functions include: affirmative asylum interviews on Form I-589 applications filed with USCIS by noncitizens not in removal proceedings, credible fear interviews at the expedited removal screening stage under INA section 235(b)(1)(B), reasonable fear interviews for noncitizens subject to reinstated removal orders or administrative removal, NACARA screenings, and, under the 2022 Asylum Processing Rule (8 CFR 208.2(a)(1)(ii)), merits adjudication of asylum claims for certain noncitizens placed in expedited removal and found to have credible fear. Approval rates vary significantly by officer, office, and nationality; TRAC data has historically shown USCIS affirmative asylum approval rates ranging from roughly 20% to 60% depending on the period. Affirmative denials result in referral to EOIR for de novo consideration by an immigration judge. Asylum officers apply the well-founded fear standard (a reasonable possibility of persecution) with the benefit of the Cardoza-Fonseca (1987) Supreme Court framework.

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