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CHARLOTTE — IMMIGRATION COURT

CHARLOTTE NC

10%

Asylum grant rate

of 14,025 decisions · FY2009–FY2026

95% interval: 10% — 11%

granted:
1,420
denied:
12,605
other protection: withholding and the Convention Against Torture:
4

Withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture let a person stay, but grant no refugee status and no path to a green card. They are therefore excluded from the asylum grant rate and shown as a separate figure.

How this percentage is calculated
Grant rate = granted / (granted + denied). Administrative closures, withdrawals, abandonment and "not adjudicated" are excluded from the denominator. The unit of count is a decision per proceeding, not per application: applicants almost always file asylum, withholding and CAT protection together. Withholding and CAT grants are counted separately from asylum. U.S. fiscal year: October 1 – September 30.

How this compares

  • CHARLOTTE — IMMIGRATION COURT10% (14,025)
  • All U.S. courts33% (1,350,724)

This comparison does not adjust for which cases a judge was given: judges see different nationalities, different shares of detained respondents, and different rates of legal representation. A difference in percentages does not by itself mean identical cases were treated differently.

Trend by fiscal year

0%25%50%75%100%2009201120142017202020232026

U.S. fiscal year: October 1 – September 30.

FY2026 is incomplete: the release covers only 10 of its 12 months. Its point is drawn hollow and the segment leading to it is dashed.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY2026partial4,0834%4% — 5%
FY20253,3647%6% — 8%
FY202492820%17% — 22%
FY202371716%14% — 19%
FY202250618%15% — 22%
FY202154416%13% — 20%
FY202040513%10% — 16%
FY20198678%6% — 10%
FY20188035%4% — 7%
FY201736213%10% — 17%
FY201632820%16% — 24%
FY201518814%10% — 20%
FY201413718%12% — 25%
FY201316620%15% — 27%
FY201217928%22% — 36%
FY201123520%15% — 25%
FY201013527%21% — 35%
FY20097850%39% — 61%

How long a case takes

From service of the NTA to the decision on the application, across all judges of this court.

36 mo

median

half of cases: 24—51 mo

based on 14,029 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY20264,08342 mo28—55
FY20253,36439 mo22—48
FY202492831 mo22—42
FY202371754 mo42—72
FY202250657 mo44—68
FY202154449 mo38—56
FY202040538 mo34—42
FY201986732 mo28—38
FY201880326 mo23—32
FY201736222 mo19—28

Duration runs from the NTA date (charging document served) to the decision on the application. Median, not mean: the distribution has a long right tail. Cases decided this year may have begun a decade ago, so duration by year of decision is not a forecast for a case filed today.

The queue

Cases at this court with no decision yet.

119,182
cases waiting
33 mo
already waited, median
  • Half have waited between 27 mo and 39 mo.
  • 104,142 (87%) have a hearing scheduled later than the date this data was collected. The rest have no upcoming event in the release.

The queue counts proceedings with no decision in the release. The figure runs from the NTA date to the release cutoff — it is how long people have already waited, not how much longer they will. Shown separately: how many have a hearing scheduled after the cutoff. The rest have no upcoming event in the release and should not be read alongside live cases.

Judges of this court

Showing judges with at least 50 asylum decisions at this court.

0%25%50%75%100%Holmes-Simmons, Theresa: 58%, n=3765Lee, Amy T.: 13%, n=1700Palmer, Brian T.: 20%, n=1588de Cardona, Lisa A.: 22%, n=1448Criss, Scott D.: 12%, n=1373Lopez-Enriquez, Maria: 13%, n=1351Martz, Nicholas A.: 13%, n=1248Pettinato, Barry J.: 12%, n=1079Nance, Jeffery R.: 10%, n=1075Couch, V. Stuart: 11%, n=943Mannion, Steve: 8%, n=808Riggs, George W.: 6%, n=750Terrien, Jeb: 18%, n=729Lewandowski, Robert M.: 8%, n=692Brown, Charlotte D.: 17%, n=663Napier, Wade Thomas: 21%, n=658Kassell, Joseph: 8%, n=597Rainey, Zol: 10%, n=595Gorman, Stephanie: 9%, n=585Karesh, Ellen: 13%, n=546White, David: 3%, n=541Stewart, Stephen: 6%, n=527Purnell, Charles N.: 2%, n=513Graulich, James C.: 8%, n=471Julius, Derek: 15%, n=463Batko-Taylor, Abby Anna.: 47%, n=265Dotson, Chadwick: 9%, n=171Kerby, Jennifer: 18%, n=133Mangoli, Vimala S.: 7%, n=101Wells, Jennifer: 0%, n=7210030010003000Decisions

Horizontally, how many decisions a judge issued; vertically, their grant rate. The band shows how much spread is explained by sample size alone.

Inside the band: the difference is not supported by a sample of that size.

Outside the band: the difference is larger than chance explains.

Hearing cases now — 26

U.S. immigration judges: volume and asylum grant rate
JudgeDecisionsGranted95% interval
Holmes-Simmons, Theresa3,76758%56% — 59%
Lee, Amy T.1,70113%12% — 15%
Palmer, Brian T.1,58820%18% — 22%
de Cardona, Lisa A.1,44822%20% — 25%
Criss, Scott D.1,37312%11% — 14%
Lopez-Enriquez, Maria1,35213%12% — 15%
Martz, Nicholas A.1,24813%11% — 15%
Nance, Jeffery R.1,07510%8% — 12%
Mannion, Steve8088%6% — 10%
Terrien, Jeb72918%15% — 21%
Lewandowski, Robert M.6928%6% — 10%
Brown, Charlotte D.66317%14% — 20%
Napier, Wade Thomas65821%18% — 24%
Kassell, Joseph5978%6% — 10%
Gorman, Stephanie5859%7% — 12%
Karesh, Ellen54613%10% — 16%
White, David5413%2% — 5%
Stewart, Stephen5276%4% — 8%
Purnell, Charles N.5132%1% — 4%
Graulich, James C.4718%6% — 11%
Julius, Derek46315%12% — 18%
Batko-Taylor, Abby Anna.26547%41% — 53%
Dotson, Chadwick1719%5% — 14%
Kerby, Jennifernothing scheduled13318%12% — 25%
Mangoli, Vimala S.nothing scheduled1017%3% — 14%
Wells, Jennifer720%0% — 5%

Worked here before — 4

They have no hearings scheduled anywhere after the release cutoff. Their rates remain in the court's statistics — the decisions were made — but for someone holding a notice they are no longer about their case.

U.S. immigration judges: volume and asylum grant rate
JudgeDecisionsGranted95% interval
Pettinato, Barry J.not hearing cases1,07912%10% — 14%
Couch, V. Stuartnot hearing cases94511%9% — 13%
Riggs, George W.not hearing cases7506%4% — 8%
Rainey, Zolnothing scheduled59510%8% — 13%

Status is derived from the court calendar: whether the judge has hearings scheduled after the release cutoff. The EOIR release carries no personnel data, so retirement, removal, elevation to the BIA and extended absence cannot be told apart — only what the data shows is stated here. Hearings are scheduled two to three years out, so an empty calendar for a working judge is rare; for judges who went quiet in the last few months it may still be an artifact of the cutoff, which lags by about a month. The lookup table's "active" flag is not used: it disagrees with the calendar for a third of judges.

Data comes from the monthly EOIR Case Data release (U.S. DOJ FOIA Library). This service is not affiliated with the U.S. government and does not provide legal advice. The data lags by roughly a month; for current case status use ACIS and Respondent Access. The source is known to have missing records, including relief applications — absent data does not mean it is absent from your case.