What happens when the normative goal of granting asylum to applicants in need conflicts with US strategic interests? Asylum represents a critical case for the norms-versus-interests debate, because the protection of vulnerable individuals is a quintessential humanitarian project, but may entail strategic costs. In this article, a general theoretical framework for weighing the importance of norms and interests is developed and tested in the case of US asylum enforcement with respect to 42 countries of origin during and after the Cold War. Both norms and interests influence asylum decisions, and when they prescribe similar actions in regard to asylum cases, state agents face no difficulty in making choices. When human rights norms and state interests prescribe contradictory actions, however, analysts know little about the relative importance of each factor. The findings in this article suggest that the ways in which norms and interests affect asylum enforcement have changed over time. Normative admissions were primarily a function of procedural democracy during the 1980s, and substantive human rights have been increasingly influential since then. Second, enforcement reflected security and diplomatic considerations during the 1980s, but these concerns gave way during the 1990s to goals of maintaining good relations with trade partners and preventing undocumented migration. Finally, there is no evidence that the importance of norms relative to interests has increased over time, contrary to the predictions of some constructivists.

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