When you mention "U.S. immigration" to a Korean person, they typically think of employment-based immigration, family sponsorship, or investment immigration.

Most often, the combination of piles of paperwork, hefty attorney fees, and years of waiting can be quite draining.

However, there is a much simpler route in the U.S.: entering on a tourist visa and then applying for asylum.

This may sound like a clever loophole, but it is not new at all. In the immigration law field, it has been a classic approach for quite some time.

Currently, the Trump administration is pushing a plan to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who entered on B1/B2 visas and then applied for asylum, which were issued between 2016 and 2026.

The target could be as many as 200,000 people. If implemented, this would be the largest single visa cancellation in U.S. history. We have to give credit to President Trump for the scale of this action.

U.S. asylum law stipulates that individuals must have been persecuted or have a "well-founded fear" of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. 

Any other reasons, no matter how dire, do not legally qualify.

A typical example is China. There are cases where individuals claim that after publicly criticizing the Communist Party or the Xi Jinping regime, they would face arrest, detention, or persecution if they returned to China. In fact, asylum cases related to Falun Gong have been addressed multiple times in U.S. immigration courts.

There was also a case where a woman, identified as a Falun Gong practitioner by the Chinese government, claimed she was arrested, detained, and assaulted, and another case where someone applied for asylum after starting Falun Gong activities in the U.S. and fearing punishment upon return.

Recently, there was the case of citizen journalist Guan Heng, who filmed human rights abuses in Xinjiang and made them public. He applied for asylum after releasing the footage in the U.S., and the State Department mentioned that China could retaliate against dissidents abroad in relation to his case. This is clearly what the system was originally designed to address.

The same goes for cases from Africa. One should not lazily assume, "They must be seeking asylum because they come from a Muslim country."

Even within the Islamic world, individuals can face persecution due to differences in sect and ethnicity. There is a case where a man from Algeria was assaulted and discriminated against because he was an Ibadhi Muslim and a Mozabite, and after his home was burned down, he was granted asylum in the U.S. There was also a case where a Somali applicant requested protection after receiving death threats for refusing to join Al-Shabaab and associating with government officials.

So, it is absolutely not the case that "if you come to the U.S. and criticize Xi Jinping, you will be granted permanent residency."

The U.S. government and immigration courts comprehensively assess whether the activities are genuine, whether there is a real possibility of persecution upon return, and whether the home government is even aware of the individual's existence.

If someone claims on a dissident account with 40 Twitter followers that they will be killed if they return to China, the judge can do that math.

But does the system have the capacity to make that judgment?

This is where we need to take a cold, hard look.

The U.S. protects those who would face imprisonment or life-threatening situations upon return due to political or religious reasons.

It's a point of pride for a liberal democracy. The issue lies not in the intent but in the implementation.

However, a system where the cost of verification is much higher than the application cost is bound to be abused. This is not a moral issue but a structural one.

The reason spam emails do not disappear and why free trial accounts are created endlessly is all based on the same principle.

Applying takes just a piece of paper, while verification requires hours from a judge. If this asymmetry is left unchecked, the outcome is predetermined.

The U.S. asylum system is exactly that structure.

Once an application is submitted, the individual enters a waiting queue, which can take years, and during that time, they can receive an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) to work legally.

In a system where the final decision comes years later, the act of applying itself already holds significant value.

The administration's argument is clear. If someone enters the country on a tourist visa saying, "I'll visit Disneyland and return in two weeks," and then applies for asylum immediately upon entry, it raises questions about whether the original purpose of the visit was genuine.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also mentioned false asylum applications, stating that asylum should not become a 'loophole' to bypass immigration law.

Honestly, it's hard to refute this point. Non-immigrant visas are issued based on the premise of "nonimmigrant intent."

If an asylum application is submitted just three weeks after entry, it's not conspiracy theory but basic reasoning to suspect that the premise was false from the start.

I have also been asked that question during my U.S. visa interview, so I have some emotional investment in this part.

I believe there are issues with the current asylum-related system. There are three reasons for this.

First, it categorizes by range rather than by conditions. The filter of "B1/B2 entry from 2016 to 2026 + asylum application" catches both genuine and false cases. The citizen journalist from Xinjiang mentioned above and the Mozabite from Algeria mostly entered on tourist visas. Political prisoners rarely apply for refugee visas by announcing, "I'm going to seek asylum." They typically come in that way.

Second, circumstances can change after a person arrives in the U.S. There are real cases where someone comes as a tourist, and while they are here, a coup occurs in their home country, or activities they started in the U.S. become known back home and put them at risk. Current law allows for asylum applications regardless of immigration status under certain conditions.

Third, and this is the most important point, this measure does not address the bottleneck. If the queue is backed up for years and the structure allows for work permits to be issued in the meantime, even if 200,000 visas are canceled, the next 200,000 will be lined up at the same door. It's like erasing logs while leaving the root cause intact.

U.S. asylum should be a narrow and sturdy door. It is a system for those whose lives are at stake due to political or religious reasons, not a side channel to skip the immigration law queue.

I agree with that principle. And the people who should uphold this principle the most are not the anti-immigration advocates but the genuine refugees who truly need this system.

As the number of false claims increases, the genuine ones are put under suspicion.

However, if the only way to uphold the system is to "cancel 200,000 applications all at once," that is more a symptom of policy failure than a policy itself.

The real solution lies in increasing the number of immigration judges, shortening processing times, expediting the termination of clearly unfounded applications, and redesigning the speed of work permits and reviews.

These are things that won't make headlines but are essential for actual functioning.

The question posed by the Trump administration, "Can we distinguish between those who are genuinely persecuted and those who are trying to exploit the system?"

I believe the current answer is not a response to that question but rather a confession of inability to answer it.