Many authors have commented on the increasing resistance of Western States to accepting large numbers of asylum seekers. However, the literature lacks a coherent theory about the specific mechanisms behind the rise of deterrence policies in individual States. Based on 52 interviews and a media database of 444 articles, I examine the arc of American asylum policy over many decades. I argue that when the Cold War ended, the anti-communist hold on the American asylum programme was loosened, and the early 1990s ushered in a flurry of reforms designed to expand the programme and make the decision-making process more rich and transparent. However, these changes coincided with an asylum boom that placed heavy administrative costs on receiving States just as the power of granting asylum to people in exile lost its strategic geo-political appeal. The regime that eventually developed became closely aligned with the domestic politics of border control, as opposed to either foreign policy concerns or the guidelines of international law. Thus, both institutional and ideological strains led to the sudden demise of the dominant policy-making regime, and made room temporarily for another, only to be quickly trumped by a third – the regime of deterrence.