The California Department of Justice said in a press release that Attorney General led a coalition of 21 attorneys general in submitting a comment letter opposing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s interim final rule that permits U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to refer affirmative asylum applications directly to the Executive Office for Immigration Review without an asylum officer interview.
DHS estimates the rule could result in roughly 130,000 future affirmative asylum applicants being referred without an interview each year and could affect up to 444,000 cases already pending in EOIR’s asylum backlog; the release says the rule went into effect on July 28, 2026.
The release says the IFR pushes applicants into adversarial removal proceedings where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor argues against their claim; the release reports a 94% denial rate in June 2026 and says immigration judges now frequently deny asylum claims without a full merits hearing.
The coalition argues the rule will increase the risk of detention and removal, disrupt employment authorization, make legal representation harder to obtain, and strain state-funded legal service providers and healthcare clinics; the release adds that 44% of asylum seekers, asylees, and refugees in the U.S. are torture survivors, citing the Center for Victims of Torture.
Bonta and the coalition say the IFR violates federal law for unaccompanied children, who the release says are entitled under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act to USCIS’s non-adversarial asylum process; the release also asserts the rule circumvented notice-and-comment requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act and failed to consider reasonable alternatives.
"As the People’s Attorney, I am committed to ensuring that everyone in California, regardless of their legal status, has access to a fair immigration process," Attorney General Bonta said in the release.
The release says Bonta recently led multistate actions against other federal immigration policies, including a final court order blocking restrictions on access to public benefit programs and a lawsuit to block a new public charge rule in September 2026.
The release directs readers to the Department of Justice’s immigrant protections page at oag.ca.gov/immigrant for more information.
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 3 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
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