"The pace of deciding asylum cases is up sharply so far in FY 2020. A total of 33,194 asylum cases have already been decided on their merits according to the latest case-by-case Immigration Court data covering the first four months of fiscal year 2020 (October 2019 - January 2020). There were 67,520 asylum decisions during all of FY 2019. However, the court's backlog is still climbing as the pace of new receipts continues to exceed case completions."