Asylum Isn't As Crazy as Trump Claims
The president-elect can't tell political asylum from an insane asylum. But a little linguistic history reveals a more compelling American tradition.
During several campaign rallies this year, Donald Trump denounced the political practice of asylum—namely, the legal status requested by foreigners fleeing political persecution and violence and entering the United States via a port of entry.
Yet, Trump frequently coupled his criticisms of asylum with unrelated comments about mental institutions, creating confusion about his understanding of the issue. In front of a New Jersey crowd in May, Trump claimed that "the mental institution population is down because they're taking people from insane asylums [in foreign countries]" and sending them to the United States.
"You know what the difference is, right?" he asked the crowd. "An insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids."
Trump's stream of consciousness also roped in Hannibal Lecter, the violent and institutionalized antagonist from The Silence of the Lambs. After singing the serial killer's praises, Trump—never one for logical transitions—launched into his traditional anti-immigrant vitriol:
But Hannibal Lecter, congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that have been released into our country that we don't want in our country, and they're coming in totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And we can't let this happen. They're destroying our country, and we're sitting back. And we better damn well win this election because if we don't, our country is going to be doomed.
This verbal diarrhea left many observers questioning whether Trump understood asylum or was really confusing the concept of political refuge with mental institutions.
The Etymology of Asylum
Accounts of the word's origin differ. Long before the word became associated with mental health institutions, asylum was more closely aligned with the concept of sanctuary.
The earliest version of the word dates back to the 15th century. From the 1438 long-form poem The Fall of Princes, English poet John Lydgate wrote about "asilum" as, according to one translation, "a place of refuge and succours…to receyue all foreyn trespassours."
Asylum derives from the ancient Greek word asylos (a- "without" and sylos- "the right of seizure") and was originally defined as a "sanctuary or inviolable place of refuge and protection for criminals and debtors, from which they cannot be forcibly removed without sacrilege." In ancient Greece, places of worship once granted safe harbor to those seeking protection from extrajudicial violence. If the accused made it into the church, it was both taboo and sacrilegious to attempt to extract them.
This practice dates back even further. In first century Rome, several communities allowed temples, altars, and other sacred spaces the privilege of protecting fugitives, including escaped slaves, debtors, and other alleged criminals escaping punishment. The practice became so widespread that the Roman Emperor Tiberius, troubled by the perceived lawlessness, legally confined the practice. Tiberius limited jus asyli—"the right of protection"—to a select few temples.
Tiberius' inquiry proved to be a legal rabbit hole. Some Greek cities demanded the emperor grandfather-in their legacy asylum practices, claiming their legal prerogative predated the empire's. Circa fifth century B.C., communities like Athens, Sparta, and Macedonia resettled Persian asylees and refugees, afraid to return home for fear of being labeled traitors on the wrong side of the Greco-Persian Wars.
The word asylum didn't connote psychiatric hospitals and mental illness until the turn of the 18th century. Even then, British reformers demanded "moral asylum" and more humane treatment for those suffering from mental illness.
Over time, asylum replaced more pejorative terminology associated with the hospitals. The change in legal language used to codify Victorian-age institutions demonstrates this pattern. For example, the Madhouse Act of 1774 (which codified the first legal framework for the once-unregulated market for psychiatric hospitals) starkly contrasts with the County Asylums Act of 1808 (which established publicly subsidized asylums as an alternative to incarceration for the mentally ill in the U.K.).
Political Asylum Is Inextricably Linked to American History
Before the American Revolution, commentators characterized the American colonies as a haven for those yearning for liberty. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote about how the American colonies served as "the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe."
In 1783, the last British ship left the New York harbor. Gen. George Washington and his troops celebrated America's independence at Fraunces Tavern, where the victorious general proclaimed, "May America be an Asylum to the persecuted of the earth!"
Washington repeated this line in subsequent communiques. In a letter to Francis Adrian van der Kemp, the first president wrote, "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong."
Thomas Jefferson also championed asylum for nonnatives. During his first State of the Union address, Jefferson concluded: "And shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?"
Even the Republican Party, though increasingly nativist today, openly embraced asylum. Republicans' 1864 party platform stated: "Resolved, That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources and increase of power to this nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy."
Global unrest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries resulted in a significant influx of immigration to the United States. Waves of immigration included Bulgarians, Greeks, Romanians, and Serbs fleeing the Balkan Wars; Jews seeking safety from the antisemitic pogroms of Eastern Europe and the subsequent horrors of Germany's Third Reich; and Russians escaping Bolshevik violence and repression. Though asylum lacked a legal category, many immigrants who arrived at Ellis and Angel Islands during this time could easily meet the modern legal definition.
Unfortunately, these immigration waves also spurred nativist counteractions, prohibitionist bans, and inconsistent enforcement. Legislation like the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 set strict quotas on origin nations. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 favored family reunification and employment over asylees. The Refugee Act of 1980, which was heralded as a historic victory for asylees, coincided with the federal government's disproportionate treatment of Cuban and Haitian immigrants: The former received a hero's welcome as a way to thumb the American nose at communism and Fidel Castro during the Cold War's zenith, while the latter was intercepted by the Coast Guard and escorted back to Jean-Claude Duvalier's despotic yet American-friendly regime. Finally, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 codified "expedited removal," the fast-tracked process used to deport noncitizens and avoid traditional removal proceedings.
Despite its turbulent history, asylum remains central to America's identity and immigration policy. Since 1990, the federal government has accepted more than 800,000 asylees—just slightly more than the population of North Dakota—and a fiscal analysis found they yield far more revenue than public costs, netting $123.8 billion over a 15-year period.
"Our nation is a nation of immigrants," President Ronald Reagan said in 1981. "More than any other country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands."
Asylum in the Age of Trump
In 2023, 6.8 million people sought asylum globally, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—a staggering 28 percent increase from the prior year. Considering the escalation of regional wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and prolonged drought and famine in Africa, 2024 will likely record an even larger number of displaced asylum seekers.
This burgeoning population of asylum seekers won't find respite with the incoming Trump administration. Instead, Trump will likely up the ante he set during his first term, in which he increased deportation of asylees, imposed excessive application fees, enacted transit bans, limited work permits for asylees seeking appellate review of their cases, and signed a litany of executive restrictions that decimated asylum.
But before he develops any new draconian, zero-tolerance measures to limit or ban asylum, Trump must reevaluate his understanding (or lack thereof) of the word. Asylum isn't about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter—it's about real families fleeing persecution and seeking safety, freedom, and opportunity. The president-elect must disentangle asylum from its association with mental illness and embrace the vital tradition of offering refuge to the oppressed, which can strengthen our country's legacy and values and make America great again.
