The total national backlog of asylum applications is 398,000 cases. Both New York and New Jersey Asylum Offices adhere to the following scheduling priority:
All rescheduled cases;
Cases pending 100 days or less
All other filings.
The request has been sent to the Asylum Office Headquarters to post information on their website to inform applicants about their position in the queue so they can prepare and update their documents after years of waiting in advance, rather than within a few weeks after receiving an interview notice. The New York Asylum Office has 150 employees. 14 to 17 officers are physically present in the office each day. The office has 46,000 cases in its backlog, and the oldest cases are dated from September 2015. About 31 interviews are held daily, and as of April 2021, the office has no immediate plans to increase this number. Since the Covid-19-related restrictions began in March 2020, the office has received 9687 new filings, conducted 3,100 asylum interviews, and completed over 6,000 cases, of which 270 were granted and 3,969 were referred to the immigration courts. Most of the interviewed cases were new filings, while the backlogged cases remain intact. The New York Asylum Office is close to being current on the new filings, within 2020, 3217 cases were received and 3077 were interviewed. The New York Asylum Office does not consider using a shortlist option.
