What also bears repeating is that asylum grant rates are very low, because the laws governing asylum are rather strict.

> An asylum claimant must demonstrate persecution based on one of the five protected grounds (race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion).

Poverty is not one of the grounds (nor is it the same as government persecution), so most of these people don't qualify. But they don't leave. In absentia removal orders continue to pile up, but they're unenforced because failed asylum seekers are not a current "enforcement priority" for ICE. And so, yes, this is actually illegal migration.