In 2009, when Barack Obama took office, there was a backlog of half a million asylum cases. By the end of the Trump administration, the queue had reached 1.3 million. On average, it took about twenty-four months to resolve an asylum claim. In the meantime, more asylum seekers arrived. Some were allowed to enter the country on the grounds that they would eventually appear before a judge; others were jailed, summarily deported, or expelled straight into Mexico. The randomness of the system was a cruelty all its own.
