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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

SACRAMENTO — IMMIGRATION COURT

SACRAMENTO CA

64%

Asylum grant rate

of 6,622 decisions · FY1993–FY2026

95% interval: 63%65%

granted:
4,234
denied:
2,388
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

  • SACRAMENTO — IMMIGRATION COURT64% (6,622)
  • 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%199520042009201520212026

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.

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (6): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY2026partial52333%29%37%
FY20251,58673%71%75%
FY20241,86679%78%81%
FY202393771%68%73%
FY202240177%73%81%
FY202144346%41%51%
FY202024451%45%57%
FY20193611%4%25%
FY2018395%1%17%
FY2017195%1%25%
FY201660%0%39%
FY20151233%14%61%
FY2014922%6%55%
FY20131613%3%36%
FY20121331%13%58%
FY20111414%4%40%
FY20101127%10%57%
FY20092250%31%69%
FY20083636%22%52%
FY2007190%0%17%
FY20062245%27%65%
FY20052223%10%43%
FY20043116%7%33%
FY20031625%10%49%
FY2002617%3%56%
FY2001850%22%78%
FY20003826%15%42%
FY1999449%4%21%
FY19983116%7%33%
FY19973537%23%54%
FY19967415%9%25%
FY19953222%11%39%
FY199490%0%30%
FY199320%0%66%

How long a case takes

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

25 mo

median

half of cases: 16—35 mo

based on 6,621 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY202652331 mo2542
FY20251,58534 mo2438
FY20241,86624 mo1431
FY202393719 mo1336
FY202240124 mo1335
FY202144322 mo1925
FY202024414 mo926
FY20193629 mo2835
FY20183926 mo2138
FY20083613 mo1016

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.

29,931
cases waiting
35 mo
already waited, median
  • Half have waited between 27 mo and 43 mo.
  • 6,584 (22%) 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%Geisse, Loreto: 67%, n=2572Phan, Susan: 55%, n=2314Maggard, Print: 78%, n=1336Daw, Alison E: 63%, n=1237Badrinath, Vikram: 66%, n=912Hunter, Denise: 78%, n=561Hitesman, Jonathan W.: 30%, n=2503001000Decisions

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 — 7

U.S. immigration judges: volume and asylum grant rate
JudgeDecisionsGranted95% interval
Geisse, Loreto2,57267%65%69%
Phan, Susan2,31455%53%57%
Maggard, Print1,33678%76%80%
Daw, Alison E1,23763%60%66%
Badrinath, Vikram91266%63%69%
Hunter, Denise56178%74%81%
Hitesman, Jonathan W.25030%25%36%

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.