The United States has a proud tradition of providing safe haven to individuals fleeing religious, political, ethnic, and other forms of persecution. A fair, effective, and humane asylum process should be a core American value. However, today’s asylum seekers face a daunting series of hurdles including detention, arbitrary filing deadlines, and overly broad grounds of exclusion that do not block fraud or protect against security threats, but rather prevent many genuine refugees from accessing the asylum process and gaining the protection they need.