The crisis in the U.S. asylum system, despite the lamentations of political leaders of various stripes about its collapse, finds incoherent proposed solutions that have so far not been effective. These responses do not address the root causes of the problem: an outdated asylum system that is inadequate to address the threats facing refugees in the 21st century.

With the increase in the number of people seeking asylum, the instinctive response of policymakers has been to restrict who and how many can receive this protection. An analysis piece from the Los Angeles Times criticizes the recent actions of President Joe Biden, who has established unprecedented restrictions on the right to seek asylum, including setting arbitrary limits on the number of border encounters that can trigger the closure of the system. Even with these measures, Biden faces criticism for not having implemented even greater barriers.

The central proposal of the text is that the United States needs to do the opposite of what it has been doing: instead of restricting, it should expand the definition of who is considered a refugee. The author argues that while this idea may seem counterintuitive, broadening the definition would help reduce chaos, lawlessness, and inequality at borders, as well as ease the burden on the immigration court system, which currently handles more than 1.5 million pending cases.

There is also a reference to the definition of "refugee" adopted by the United States in 1980, which was based on the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. This definition protects those who have a "well-founded fear of persecution" due to their identity or beliefs. However, the author criticizes that judging asylum applications based on this criterion has become a slow and exhausting process, often neglecting other serious threats to life and physical integrity, such as war and indiscriminate violence.