Half his asylum cases are, he reports, male and female Muslim refugees.

The problem, however, was the service's policy of confidentiality for all asylum cases.

A person's nationality is not relevant in an asylum case, they said.

"Enforcement is not an issue in asylum cases, period," he said.

State Department policy is not to comment on individual asylum cases, a spokesman said.

We would like to create a corps of officers who will focus their attention only on political asylum cases.

Not just liberty but life may be at stake in asylum cases.

"But they're doing this in these asylum cases because the workload is huge."

In asylum cases, the wrong decision can be a death sentence.

Only about 11,000 asylum cases were decided in the last year.