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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data
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LOS FRESNOS — IMMIGRATION COURT

LOS FRESNOS TX

20%

Asylum grant rate

of 7,208 decisions · FY1982–FY2025

95% interval: 19% — 21%

granted:
1,434
denied:
5,774
other protection: withholding and the Convention Against Torture:
7

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

  • LOS FRESNOS — IMMIGRATION COURT20% (7,208)
  • 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%198819972004201120182025

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

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (4): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY2025336%2% — 20%
FY20244258%6% — 12%
FY20233183%1% — 5%
FY20223195%3% — 8%
FY202121312%8% — 17%
FY202023619%15% — 25%
FY201944212%9% — 15%
FY20184819%7% — 12%
FY201743510%7% — 13%
FY201630510%7% — 13%
FY201555526%22% — 29%
FY201448925%22% — 29%
FY201326135%30% — 41%
FY201226433%28% — 39%
FY201119635%28% — 42%
FY20103913%6% — 27%
FY20093023%12% — 41%
FY20083132%19% — 50%
FY20075424%15% — 37%
FY20062627%14% — 46%
FY20052317%7% — 37%
FY20043631%18% — 47%
FY20032218%7% — 39%
FY20021527%11% — 52%
FY20011010%2% — 40%
FY20003424%12% — 40%
FY19991638%18% — 61%
FY19983228%16% — 45%
FY19973826%15% — 42%
FY19968824%16% — 34%
FY199515435%28% — 43%
FY199417421%15% — 27%
FY199327229%24% — 35%
FY199229433%28% — 38%
FY199125332%27% — 38%
FY199034726%21% — 30%
FY198920529%23% — 35%
FY1988329%3% — 24%
FY198750%0% — 43%
FY198640%0% — 49%
FY198510%0% — 79%
FY198210%0% — 79%

How long a case takes

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

3 mo

median

half of cases: 2—5 mo

based on 7,215 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY2025333 mo2—7
FY20244253 mo2—4
FY20233183 mo2—5
FY20223193 mo2—4
FY20212133 mo2—5
FY20202366 mo4—9
FY20194423 mo2—4
FY20184814 mo3—5
FY20174354 mo3—5
FY20163053 mo2—3

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.

1
cases waiting
388 mo
already waited, median
  • Half have waited between 388 mo and 388 mo.
  • 0 (0%) 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%Powell, Robert L.: 14%, n=1472Achtsam, Howard E.: 28%, n=1457Zlatow, Jeffrey: 20%, n=1390Hart, Brandon L.: 15%, n=1156Onyewuchi, Morris I.: 6%, n=801Pimentel, Frank T.: 10%, n=762Hunsucker, Keith E.: 20%, n=713Cigarroa, Barbara Gonzalez: 24%, n=445Prud'Homme, M. Edwin: 30%, n=1383001000Decisions

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 — 1

U.S. immigration judges: volume and asylum grant rate
JudgeDecisionsGranted95% interval
Pimentel, Frank T.76210%8% — 12%

Moved to another court — 2

These judges heard cases here; their hearings are now scheduled in another city. A case reaches such a judge only if it follows them.

U.S. immigration judges: volume and asylum grant rate
JudgeCourtDecisionsGranted95% interval
Powell, Robert L.CONROE — IMMIGRATION COURT1,47414%12% — 16%
Hart, Brandon L.DALLAS — IMMIGRATION COURT1,15615%13% — 18%

Worked here before — 6

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
Achtsam, Howard E.not hearing cases1,45828%25% — 30%
Zlatow, Jeffreynot hearing cases1,39020%18% — 22%
Onyewuchi, Morris I.nothing scheduled8016%5% — 8%
Hunsucker, Keith E.not hearing cases71620%17% — 23%
Cigarroa, Barbara Gonzaleznothing scheduled44524%20% — 28%
Prud'Homme, M. Edwinnot hearing cases13830%23% — 38%

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.