A legal deadline requiring immigrants to file their asylum claims within one year after coming here went into effect in 1998. Since then about 21,000 refugees who would very likely have won asylum in this country were rejected because they did not meet it, according to a study published Thursday on the Social Science Research Network by law professors from Georgetown and Jaya Ramji-Nogales, a professor at Temple's Beasley School of Law. The study also found "enormous disparities" among asylum-seekers who were rejected because they missed the deadline, based on the country they came from. While only 17 percent of Iraqis who filed late were finally rejected by immigration officers, about 75 percent of Guatemalans who filed late were rejected, the study found.