DOGE exposed our immigration asylum disaster. That was the tip of the iceberg

Elon Musk, Antonio Gracias and the DOGE team recently exposed how rampant immigration fraud and government corruption became under the Biden administration. Specifically, they showed how aliens "getting" asylum can receive work authorization and, with it, an automatic Social Security number, which enables them to obtain driver’s licenses, commit voter fraud and receive other benefits. 

This already sounds alarming. But the truth is even worse. 

Under current U.S. regulations, asylum applicants can apply for a work authorization document with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) five months after their asylum application is filed (rather than five months after it’s granted). There’s no filing fee for asylum applications – meaning there is literally no cost involved in applying. 

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This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications to gain U.S. work authorization.   

Venezuelan migrants flown from Guantanamo Bay via Honduras walk up a ladder after arriving on a deportation flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, La Guaira State, Venezuela, February 20, 2025. (REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria)

And while adjudicating the asylum application can take DHS or the Justice Department years to complete, the DHS prioritizes granting employment authorization applications, averaging mere months to complete such applications. 

In other words, individuals can fraudulently apply for asylum and then receive work authorization shortly after, safe in the knowledge that their asylum application may not be decided for years. 

Asylum was created to protect the persecuted. But this system means it’s more prone to be exploited by inadmissible aliens as a way to get work authorizations, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and other government benefits. 

As a result, the system is being flooded. Under the Biden administration, so many employment documents were issued to immigration parolees (without congressional authorization), asylum applicants and other temporary aliens that DHS could not keep up with renewing the authorizations. 

To "solve" the problem, Biden’s DHS finalized a rule in December 2024 to permanently increase the automatic extension period for expiring employment authorization from six months to 18 months. 

That is, DHS chose to automatically extend work authorization without ever considering whether the aliens should continue to have it. 

According to one chart (shown by DOGE’s Gracias at a recent Wisconsin town hall), 270,000 new aliens were issued Social Security numbers in FY2021. That number rose to 590,000 in FY22, 964,000 in FY23, and approximately 2.1 million in FY24. 

According to Gracias, the Social Security Administration automatically mails aliens Social Security numbers – without requiring them to prove their identity or complete an interview. Gracias says "The defaults in the system from Social Security to all the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people. And minimum collection." 

Former President Joe Biden's administration ensured the asylum system maximized aid to illegal immigrants. FILE: Biden attends the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images)

During its investigations, DOGE found 1.3 million aliens who were already receiving Medicaid. They also found among the millions a subset who were registered to vote – and some who did indeed vote. 

All this is the result of broad administrative state abuse of alien work authorization – something Congress needs to end by reclaiming its own constitutional authority and by returning asylum (our nation’s second-most important immigration benefit, after U.S. citizenship) back to its intended role of protecting people from persecution. 

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Specifically, Congress should legislate the principle that immigration benefit applicants (including those receiving asylum) may not receive work authorization until the underlying benefit (e.g., asylum) is granted, not just filed. While waiting for their applications to be adjudicated, applicants should fund their stay in the U.S. via a sponsor responsible for their financial well-being. 

Congress should also enact anti-fraud asylum measures, which would significantly decrease the number of fraudulent asylum applications – and, by extension, would decrease the years-long wait for DHS and DOJ to adjudicate legitimate asylum applications. 

DOGE can also step in and examine immigration benefit applications at DHS and DOJ to identify fraudulent applications and remove them from the 9.4 million and nearly 3.7 million respective agency backlogs. This would decrease the processing times for the remaining valid applications and restore integrity to our lawful immigration process. 

Finally, DOGE should set automatic notifications across the benefits lifecycle so that when a non-citizen is denied an immigration benefit, downstream systems and parties are likewise notified to terminate their respective benefits. 

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Under this system, if an alien’s asylum application or employment authorization application were denied or terminated, the alien’s employer, ICE, SSA, the Internal Revenue Service, and the alien’s state(s) of residence would be notified to ensure the alien was no longer working, receiving benefits or voting – and, ultimately, that he was removed from the country. 

By acting now, DOGE and Congress can decrease the deportable alien population, ensure U.S. taxpayer benefits go to Americans first, and incentivize better compliance with our generous immigration laws. 

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