Asylum Success Still Varies Widely Among Immigration Judges (2024)

Published Nov 25, 2024

Wide differences in Immigration Judge asylum denial rates are evident across many Courts in the latest release of TRAC’s Immigration Judge report series. These new reports update each judge’s asylum decisions over the past six years through September 2024. The series includes 823 individual judge reports covering each of the 66 current Immigration Courts.[1] Where these judges were based is shown in Figure 1. Each of the latest individual judge reports is available here.

In this updated series, the widest difference between asylum denial rates was found in the San Francisco Immigration Court. See Figure 2.[2] There the range between the judge with the highest denial rate (91.6%) and the lowest denial rate (1.3%) was over 90 percentage points. The New York Immigration Court was right behind with a range of 89 percentage points, followed by the Arlington and Sacramento Immigration Courts each with a range of 86 percentage points. Two additional Immigration Courts had ranges of 80 percentage points or higher. These were the Newark Immigration Court (range of 83) and the Boston Immigration Court (range of 80). For other Courts, see Denial Rates table.

Asylum Success Still Varies Widely Among Immigration Judges (1)

Figure 1. Number of Judges at Each Immigration Court Who Decided At Least 100 Asylum Cases in FY 2019 - FY 2024

Asylum Success Still Varies Widely Among Immigration Judges (2)

Figure 2. Differences Between the Highest and Lowest Judge Asylum Denial Rates by Court During FY 2019 - FY 2024

Why Do Judge Denial Rates Vary?

If Judge A's denial rate in San Francisco is higher than Judge B's denial rate in New York or Los Angeles, this does not imply that Judge A's decisions are somehow biased. It is entirely possible that fewer valid claims came before Judge A's court and that this fact accounts for Judge A's higher denial rate. The makeup of cases heard by different Immigration Courts around the country can be quite varied.

Applicants seeking asylum in the United States typically submit their claim in the court nearest their residence. As TRAC has previously reported, immigrants from a specific country often head to communities in which they have family or other ties.[3] For example, San Francisco and New York have been the lead destinations for immigrants from India, while the vast majority of newly arriving Cubans have located in Florida and particularly in Miami-Dade County.

This means that composition and background of cases in different courts vary a great deal, with asylum decisions often impacted by the conditions in the country the immigrant is fleeing. Data consistently show that asylum grant rates are strongly related to the nationality of the asylum seeker.[4]

Other differences in Court locations can affect outcome. One key factor is the availability of immigration attorneys which impacts how many asylum applicants have the help of a skilled attorney. Asylum seekers with representation enter the courtroom with greatly improved odds of being granted asylum.[5]

When we compare the decisions of judges sitting on the same bench, however, the situation is different. To the extent that asylum cases are assigned randomly within an individual Immigration Court (as the EOIR claims)[6] we can meaningfully focus on the extent of differences in asylum denial rates for judges within the same Court. When individual judges handle a sufficient number of asylum requests,[7] random case assignment will result in each judge being assigned a roughly equivalent mix of "worthy" cases. Large differences documented in the denial rates among judges then cannot be explained by differences in the legitimacy of asylum seekers' claims. One or more other factors—such as the pre-existing predilections of the judge assigned—must then be a source for these disparities.

The Impact of Court Size

It is also the case that larger differences among judges at the same Immigration Court tend to be found where the Court has more judges. More judges, each with their own background, experiences and judicial philosophy they bring to the bench, increase the odds that some judges will be chosen with differing views. Thus, it should not be surprising that among the Courts discussed earlier with the highest ranges between the judge with lowest and the judge with the highest denial rates, that the top two also have the largest number of judges: San Francisco (50 judges) and New York (79 judges). See Table 1.

Table 1. Asylum Decision Differences Among Judges by Immigration Court, FY 2019 - FY 2024

Immigration Court City State Number of Judges* Judge Asylum Denial Rate
Lowest Judge Highest Judge Range
San Francisco San Francisco CA 50 1.3 91.6 90.3
New York New York NY 79 3.2 92.6 89.4
Arlington Falls Church VA 33 9.3 95.4 86.1
Sacramento Sacramento CA 11 4.4 90.0 85.6
Newark Newark NJ 21 12.4 95.7 83.3
Boston Boston MA 26 11.4 91.6 80.2
Chicago Chicago IL 24 11.8 90.4 78.6
New York - DET New York NY 22 7.2 82.4 75.2
Memphis Memphis TN 13 25.0 97.2 72.2
El Paso El Paso TX 5 14.7 81.0 66.3
Atlanta Atlanta GA 14 31.0 97.2 66.2
Laredo Laredo TX 11 24.5 90.2 65.7
Santa Ana Santa Ana CA 23 14.8 78.3 63.5
Los Angeles - WLA Los Angeles CA 37 27.5 88.9 61.4
Los Angeles - North Los Angeles CA 14 36.1 97.2 61.1
Van Nuys Van Nuys CA 9 22.1 83.2 61.1
Las Vegas Las Vegas NV 6 33.1 94.0 60.9
Baltimore Baltimore MD 13 11.2 71.6 60.4
Hyattsville Hyattsville MD 16 12.3 70.4 58.1
San Diego San Diego CA 12 37.4 94.7 57.3
Portland Portland OR 8 38.0 92.6 54.6
San Antonio San Antonio TX 12 14.7 69.1 54.4
Sterling Sterling VA 12 11.4 64.5 53.1
Eloy Eloy AZ 6 37.8 90.4 52.6
Adelanto Adelanto CA 10 44.4 96.6 52.2
Dallas Dallas TX 11 42.6 94.7 52.1
Philadelphia Philadelphia PA 13 28.6 79.4 50.8
Orlando Orlando FL 13 40.8 90.8 50.0
Bloomington Fort Snelling MN 11 36.6 85.0 48.4
New Orleans New Orleans LA 8 45.7 93.8 48.1
Chaparral Chaparral NM 5 39.8 87.4 47.6
Aurora Aurora CO 4 42.3 89.7 47.4
Denver Denver CO 12 37.3 83.8 46.5
Oakdale Oakdale LA 9 45.4 89.2 43.8
Conroe Conroe TX 11 59.3 98.8 39.5
Cleveland Cleveland OH 13 56.9 95.1 38.2
Florence Florence AZ 3 48.3 82.9 34.6
Imperial Imperial CA 5 24.1 58.2 34.1
Jena Jena LA 10 65.5 95.0 29.5
Houston Houston TX 23 70.9 100.0 29.1
Miami Miami FL 34 68.5 97.5 29.0
Detroit Detroit MI 5 52.2 79.6 27.4
Elizabeth Elizabeth NJ 8 64.9 91.4 26.5
Harlingen Harlingen TX 9 57.8 84.3 26.5
Houston - Gessner Houston TX 10 62.3 88.6 26.3
Houston - Greenspoint Houston TX 20 70.3 96.4 26.1
Pearsall Pearsall TX 6 57.0 83.0 26.0
Buffalo Buffalo NY 4 47.5 71.1 23.6
Charlotte Charlotte NC 9 73.2 96.7 23.5
Phoenix Phoenix AZ 9 63.4 86.9 23.5
Concord Concord CA 6 2.0 25.3 23.3
Honolulu Honolulu HI 2 36.8 58.0 21.2
Otay Mesa San Diego CA 6 52.1 71.6 19.5
Lumpkin Lumpkin GA 7 73.1 91.7 18.6
Kansas City Kansas City MO 4 76.1 94.1 18.0
Seattle Seattle WA 8 62.6 80.0 17.4
West Valley West Valley City UT 5 26.8 43.2 16.4
Tucson Tucson AZ 5 55.6 71.7 16.1
Miami - Krome Miami FL 7 83.8 97.7 13.9
Los Fresnos Los Fresnos TX 5 77.5 90.6 13.1
El Paso - EPD El Paso TX 4 73.0 85.5 12.5
Hartford Hartford CT 3 64.6 75.4 10.8
Tacoma Tacoma WA 3 57.7 65.9 8.2
Omaha Omaha NE 3 85.8 92.3 6.5
Batavia Batavia NY 2 80.0 82.1 2.1
Atlanta - ATD Atlanta GA 1 79.4 79.4 na

* Number of Immigration Judges who granted or denied asylum in at least 100 cases during FY 2019 - FY 2024. The range is not applicable (na) to a court with just a single judge.

However, this correlation of Court size and differences in denial range only extends to a certain point. Years ago, when the New York Court employed fewer than half the present roster of judges, the range in denial rates resembled present disparity levels. Back in 2007, asylum denial rates ranged from one New York judge denying asylum 91.6 percent of the time all the way down to colleagues’ denial rates of only 9.5 percent. See TRAC’s 2007 report. With differences this large persisting over so many years, countless asylum seekers’ fates have unquestionably been determined by luck alone, based on which judge their cases were assigned to.

Some courts do appear to be outliers—that is, Courts which given their size have an unusually large (or small) range among judges in their asylum decisions. One such Court is the El Paso Immigration Court. With just five judges who have decided at least 100 asylum cases, El Paso’s Court exhibits a much wider range in asylum denial rates depending upon which judge hears the case than the Tucson Immigration Court which also had 5 members. Is this because random assignment is not occurring? Do judges there have sufficient time to keep up on changing regulations and higher Court rulings or discuss standards with their colleagues?

The same questions could be asked of other Courts with much larger differences than their size would suggest. Historically, San Francisco has had much higher disparity than its neighbor to the south, Los Angeles. Also, why does the Sacramento Immigration Court (also in California) have the fourth highest range for its relatively small number of judges—just eleven?

Over the years, a concerted effort by the Court itself, urged on by the then Attorney General, did appear to succeed in reducing the disparity between judge decisions at least while the effort was ongoing. See detailed court-by-court findings. Further, some courts shown there with a wide range in judge denial rates, show up today with much lower ranges despite their increase in judges and caseloads.

But gains can dissipate when the focus shifts. TRAC documented in 2016 that the growing backlog of cases had increased pressures to expedite proceedings. Other administrative courts facing management pressure to quicken case processing have had the unintended consequence of actually increasing decision disparity. It would not be surprising if pressures on Immigration Judges to speed decision making, along with the reduced time available for training and discussion on the practical challenges in deciding asylum cases, may also have been a source of the increasing asylum decision disparities that have then occurred.[8]

Equal Justice Under the Law

Above the main entrance to the Supreme Court are engraved the words, "Equal Justice Under the Law." This phrase is an idealistic statement of one of the core values of the United States with its belief in the importance of the rule of law. How does the country’s legal system for determining asylum claims square with this core value? Given such wide differences in asylum decisions at the same Court, more attention is needed for why these extreme differences in asylum grant and denial rates persist.

To grant or deny an asylum application is among the most consequential decisions an Immigration Judge makes. For this reason, understanding how asylum decisions vary across time, across courts, and across judges warrants more attention—particularly in current public policy debates on immigration enforcement policies to reduce the Court’s backlog of cases. The lessons that are evident from past decades should not be ignored. For many asylum seekers our current system has not delivered a fast and fair resolution of their cases. Often it has delivered neither.

Footnotes

[1]^ Beginning in 2006, TRAC developed an online system where Immigration Judges themselves were able to compare their own asylum denial rates with those of every other judge – information they previously had not been able to access. This information came from our analysis of detailed information about the record of each individual judge going back to FY 1994. Reports on the judges were published regularly beginning in 2006. This means that since that time practitioners, immigration rights groups, the media and the judges themselves have been able to easily check an important aspect of their work. The current as well as historical series with reports covering asylum decisions back to FY 1994 can be viewed at: https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judgereports/.

[2]^ The data here only include judges who have issued decisions in at least 100 asylum cases from FY 2019-FY 2024 according to Immigration Court records.

[3]^ See, for example, June 2023 TRAC report, “Top County Destinations for Asylum Seekers.”

[4]^ For latest figures on asylum grant rates by nationality see November 20, 2024 report.

[5]^ See, for example, “Representation Makes Fourteen-Fold Difference in Outcome” ( TRAC 2015), “Representation for Unaccompanied Children in Immigration Court” ( TRAC 2014), “Where You Live Impacts Ability To Obtain Representation in Immigration Court” ( TRAC 2017), “A National Assessment of the Biden Administration's Dedicated Docket Initiative” ( TRAC 2022).

[6]^ With the growth in the assignment of specific judges to specialized dockets, of course, the caseload composition of these judges will depart from others on that Court and can give rise to different asylum denial rates. Each individual judge report presents information on the composition of that judge’s cases on nationality and representation to assist in checking whether there are differences in case makeup that may legitimately help account for why that judge’s denial rate differs from colleagues on the same Court.

[7]^ It is for this reason that TRAC only publishes a report once a judge grants or denies at least 100 asylum applications. This minimizes possible natural variation in the merits of caseloads. To aid in meaningful comparisons, reports include some details on the composition of cases a judge hears.

[8]^ An open question also remains on whether the placement of the Court within the Department of Justice which is charged with enforcing our country’s laws has been a barrier to the Court’s delivery of equal justice and whether the establishment of the Immigration Court as an Article I Court would give Immigration Judges more control and allow them to more efficiently administer their proceedings. To better understand the special challenges of rendering asylum decisions, see "Who, Me? Am I Guilty of Implicit Bias?" by Judge Dana Leigh Marks in Vol. 54, No. 4 of The Judges' Journal, 2015 available at: http://www.americanbar.org/publications/judges_journal/2015/fall/who_me_am_i_guilty_of_implicit_bias.htmll.

TRAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center affiliated with the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Whitman School of Management, both at Syracuse University. For more information, to subscribe, or to donate, contact trac@syr.edu or call 315-443-3563.

Asylum Success Still Varies Widely Among Immigration Judges (2024)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Dong Thiel

Last Updated:

Views: 6407

Rating: 4.9 / 5 (79 voted)

Reviews: 94% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Dong Thiel

Birthday: 2001-07-14

Address: 2865 Kasha Unions, West Corrinne, AK 05708-1071

Phone: +3512198379449

Job: Design Planner

Hobby: Graffiti, Foreign language learning, Gambling, Metalworking, Rowing, Sculling, Sewing

Introduction: My name is Dong Thiel, I am a brainy, happy, tasty, lively, splendid, talented, cooperative person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.