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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge McFadden, Anita

Santa Ana Immigration Court

EOIR data through August 31, 2026 · built September 11, 2026 · What these dates mean

Hearing cases: hearings are scheduled

Last hearing
August 31, 2026
Next hearing
September 2, 2026 · 1,297 scheduled in all
Last decision
August 31, 2026
Courts worked at: 2

Hearings scheduled here

Worked here before

The periods overlap, and that is not an error: a judge hears cases at a new court while still closing out old ones at the previous one. Each row answers "when did this judge work here", not "from when to when did they serve here".

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, a transfer and an extended absence cannot be told apart — only what the calendar shows is stated here.

How this is counted

Hearings are scheduled two to three years out, so an empty calendar for a working judge is rare; but for a judge who went quiet in the last few months it may simply be the data lagging. The lookup table's "active" flag is not used: it disagrees with the calendar for a third of judges.

19%

Asylum grant rate

of 751 decisions · FY2022–FY2026

95% interval: 16% — 22%

granted:
143
denied:
608
How this percentage is calculated

Grant rate = granted / (granted + denied). Administrative closures, withdrawals, abandonment and "not adjudicated" are excluded from the denominator. What is counted is a decision per proceeding, not per application: asylum, withholding and CAT protection are almost always asked for together, so withholding and CAT grants are counted separately from asylum. The U.S. fiscal year runs October 1 – September 30.

How this compares

  • This judge19% (751)
  • The whole court — Santa Ana Immigration Court19% (19,175)
  • All U.S. courts33% (1,369,763)

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%20222023202420252026

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

FY2026 is incomplete: the release covers only 11 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
FY2026partial3934%3% — 7%
FY202513216%11% — 23%
FY202411743%34% — 52%
FY20238855%44% — 65%
FY20222133%17% — 55%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
Mexico1361%<1% — 5%
Colombia1165%2% — 11%
Nicaragua1018%4% — 15%
Guatemala770%<1% — 5%
India4628%17% — 43%
China4452%38% — 66%
Russia4146%32% — 61%
Peru310%0% — 11%
Honduras277%2% — 23%
Egypt1995%75% — 99%
Venezuela180%0% — 18%
El Salvador1414%4% — 40%
Turkiye1191%62% — 98%
Iran10100%72% — 100%
Indonesia967%35% — 88%

Timing and waits

How long each stage of a case takes before this judge. Every figure is a median: half of cases are faster, half slower. Data as of August 31, 2026; these are past and current cases, not a forecast for yours.

this judgenationwide

How long decided cases took

from the NTA to the decision

29 mo
half of cases: 22—39 mo
Cases decided
751
Half of cases
22—39 mo
The whole court
25 mo
NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided incasesthe case ran, medianhalf of cases, mo
FY202639329 mo25—37
FY202513233 mo26—38
FY202411724 mo18—31
FY20238817 mo13—52

Cases decided this year may have begun a decade ago, so this is not a forecast for a case filed today.

The NTA is the charging document; serving it opens the case in court. The figure is a median, not a mean: durations have a long tail, and a few decade-long cases would pull a mean far from the typical case.

How long undecided cases have already waited

from the NTA to the data cutoff

27 mo
1.3 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 34 mo
half of proceedings: 12—36 mo
Proceedings in the queue
1,302
Half of proceedings
12—36 mo
The whole court
27 mo
Nationwide
34 mo · half: 25—45 mo
Hearing set after the cutoff
94.9% (93.5% — 95.9%) · nationwide 85.5%

Decided cases and waiting cases are different cases: the first have already left the queue, the second are still in it, so these two durations can differ in either direction.

The queue counts proceedings with no decision yet in the release. It is how long people have already waited, not how much longer they will.

Shown separately is the share with a hearing scheduled after the cutoff: the rest have no future event in the release at all, and cannot be read as live alongside these.

When the nearest hearing is set

from the data cutoff to the nearest hearing

3 mo
2.6 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 7 mo
half of cases: 21 d — 7 mo
Cases with a date set
1,249
Half of cases
21 d — 7 mo
The whole court
46 d
Nationwide
7 mo · half: 2—15 mo
Time to the nearest hearing by hearing type and by custody
What is setcasesmedianvs. nationwidea quarter longerover a year out
Master hearing29011 d15 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 6 mo24 d0.0%0.0% — 1.3%
Individual hearing9745 mo2.3 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 11 mo8 mo0.0%0.0% — 0.4%

In the rows the figure runs to the nearest hearing of that kind, so it is never shorter than the overall one.

Under each share — the 95% interval.

Hearings set shortly after the cutoff have already happened by the time you read this. The count here is of cases, while the queue above counts proceedings, so the two figures need not agree. The horizon describes the docket, not the speed of the court.

Rows attached to cases already decided are excluded — the release keeps them, and with them the count of those waiting would be a tenth higher. The judge and court come from the schedule row itself: whoever will hold the hearing, not whoever the proceeding is assigned to. Cases where the person is detained have a hearing within days, the rest within months, and courts at detention centres consist almost entirely of the former. The median is only given from fifty cases up: below that it rests on two or three rows.

From a master calendar hearing to the individual hearing

from a master calendar hearing to the one set after it

5 mo
2.2 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 11 mo
half: 47 d — 8 mo
Master calendar hearings in the year
5,111
Followed by an individual hearing
35.3% (34.0% — 36.6%) · 1,805 of 5,111
To the individual hearing, half of cases
47 d — 8 mo
The whole court
5 mo
Nationwide
11 mo · half: 2—24 mo
  • A master calendar slot holds 4 cases at once, and the busiest one this year held 87; an individual hearing slot holds 3.
  • On a master calendar day 20 cases in all are called before the judge, and on the busiest day of the year, 89.
What was scheduled after a master calendar hearing: share of hearings and median gap
What was scheduled nexthearingssharemedian gap
An individual hearing1,80535.3%34.0% — 36.6%14.7% nationwide5 mo
Another master calendar2,47948.5%47.1% — 49.9%52.9% nationwide48 d
Nothing: the proceeding is over81916.0%15.0% — 17.1%27.5% nationwide—
Nothing: no hearing set yet80.2%0.1% — 0.3%4.9% nationwide—

Under each share — the 95% interval.

The figures cover master calendar hearings over the last twelve months of the release and what was set after each of them. The shares describe hearings, not cases: one case passes through several master hearings in a year and is counted as many times.

The next hearing has usually not happened yet: its date can be moved. A separate line shows after how many hearings nothing is scheduled — either the proceeding is over or the calendar has not been filled in, and towards the end of the window the second share grows simply because the calendar has not caught up. Cases where the person is detained move more than twenty times faster than the rest, and courts at detention centres consist almost entirely of them. A slot counts the cases of one judge at one time: you go to your judge's courtroom, not to the building. No hearing dates are shown here in any form. The median is only given from fifty hearings up.

In absentia decisions

Removal cases completed without the respondent in the room. This is not about a judge's strictness: attendance depends on whether the person is detained, whether notice reached them and whether they have counsel.

33% of proceedings ended in absentia — 1,636 of 4,965.

  • This judge33% (4,965)
  • The whole court23% (122,087)
  • All U.S. courts19% (11,588,297)
Share of in absentia decisions by fiscal year
Fiscal yearProceedingsIn absentiaShare
FY2021100%
FY202262330%
FY202383215218%
FY20241,09127425%
FY20251,20667756%
FY2026partial1,20753044%

The denominator is every completed removal proceeding (RMV): other proceeding types almost never end in absentia. The headline share covers the whole history, while the table shows the latest fiscal years by the proceeding's completion date. An in absentia order can be challenged by a motion to reopen.

Full statisticsMotions, adjournment reasons, appeals to the BIA, three-member panels and second rounds after a remand.

Motions

What the judge does with requests made along the way: continue the hearing, allow appearance by video, terminate the case, put it back on the calendar. Judges differ more here than in the asylum grant rate.

9,267 motions decided in October 2021 — August 2026, 2,900 of them in the last twelve months. 82% are attached to the judge by the nearest hearing.

0%50%100%76%47%63%46%48%20222023202420252026

Thick line — This judge, thin line — nationwide.

The band is the Wilson interval: the share lies within it with 95% confidence.

FY2026 is incomplete: 11 of twelve months are in the release, so its point is hollow.

Show the numbers
Motion for Continuance: share granted by fiscal year
Fiscal yearVolumeShareNationwide
FY2026incomplete18648%41% — 55%55%
FY202521346%40% — 53%71%
FY202419063%56% — 70%80%
FY202317547%40% — 55%79%
FY20227276%65% — 85%79%
Share of motions granted, by type
MotionDecidednow / beforeGrantedSeptember 2025 — August 2026BeforeOctober 2021 — August 2025Nationallynow / before
Motion for Change of Venue3571,47634%29% — 39%41%39% — 44%86%95%
Motion to Withdraw as Counsel34669337%32% — 42%35%31% — 38%91%88%
Motion to Dismiss13847—94%93% — 96%80%96%
Motion for Continuance23060646%40% — 53%56%52% — 60%56%77%
Motion to Substitute Counsel17565355%48% — 63%50%46% — 54%97%96%
Motion for Video Appearance33848859%54% — 64%59%55% — 64%69%79%
Motion to accept late filed documents26837944%38% — 50%47%42% — 52%86%90%
Motion to Pretermit556954%50% — 58%—80%59%
Other motion10118273%64% — 81%74%67% — 80%68%75%
Motion to Terminate14912923%17% — 30%33%25% — 41%59%71%
Motion for Administrative Closure391985%1% — 17%63%56% — 69%36%76%
Motion to Consolidate4419170%56% — 82%63%56% — 70%88%90%

Under each share — the 95% interval.

A dash means the window holds too few decisions to name a share; an empty recent column means the judge no longer decides motions of that kind. What the letters G and D mean, EOIR does not publish: there is no lookup for this field, and they are read from the behaviour of the cases.

How this is counted

The last twelve months and the years before them are never merged: motion practice changes faster than a case runs, and a single five-year number would average two different eras. A motion record carries no judge code of its own — it is taken from the nearest hearing by date, that is, from whoever was actually sitting on the case at the time; six motions in ten attach that way, the rest are credited to the judge of the proceeding, and the two methods disagree in one case out of five. The "nationally" column shows where judges genuinely differ: procedural motions are granted by nearly everyone nearly always.

Adjournment reasons

Why a hearing did not go ahead, and how far it pushed the case. The court assigns the reason itself; a hearing counts as adjourned when another one follows.

Of 7,918 hearings with a stated reason in September 2025 — August 2026, 6,492 were adjourned (82%).

0 d100 d200 d35 d71 d118 d130 d36 d20222023202420252026

Thick line — This judge, thin line — nationwide.

FY2026 is incomplete: 11 of twelve months are in the release, so its point is hollow.

Show the numbers
Median gap to the next hearing by fiscal year
Fiscal yearVolumeMedian days, quartiles belowNationwide
FY2026incomplete6,00636 d13 d — 145 d93 d
FY20255,925130 d41 d — 196 d161 d
FY20245,192118 d36 d — 154 d146 d
FY20234,77571 d25 d — 113 d132 d
FY20222,80035 d17 d — 78 d120 d
Adjournment reasons: share of all adjournments and median days to the next hearing
ReasonAdjournmentsnow / beforeShareSeptember 2025 — August 2026NationallyFollow-upMedian days
Preparation - respondent/attorney/representative1,1474,92917.7%16.8% — 18.6%was 27.1%9.1%8.1%100%6529–204was 11234 nationally
MC to IC - merits hearing1,1261,87517.3%16.4% — 18.3%was 10.3%12.0%10.2%100%158119–250was 180309 nationally
Respondent to seek representation1262,2801.9%1.6% — 2.3%was 12.5%9.3%15.3%100%9864–153was 13999 nationally
Insufficient time to complete hearing7251,39911.2%10.4% — 12.0%was 7.7%1.5%1.4%>99%217–56was 6628 nationally
Docket management (postpone hearing)7971,21212.3%11.5% — 13.1%was 6.7%9.7%8.3%98%120–91was 44205 nationally
Data Entry Error2761,1504.3%3.8% — 4.8%was 6.3%4.0%4.3%78%302–135was 2114 nationally
IJ leave2287093.5%3.1% — 4.0%was 3.9%5.6%5.7%99%2815–78was 92109 nationally
Other respondent/respondent's attorney/representative request2386943.7%3.2% — 4.2%was 3.8%2.8%2.9%>99%227–67was 5262 nationally
Other no-show by respondent/respondent's attorney or rep.688351.0%0.8% — 1.3%was 4.6%0.7%2.4%100%299–35was 3435 nationally
To allow for scheduling of priority case5433158.4%7.7% — 9.1%was 1.7%5.4%2.4%>99%400–136was 41202 nationally
IJ reassignment1434932.2%1.9% — 2.6%was 2.7%14.2%10.5%94%2114–23was 33134 nationally
Prosecutorial Discretion0616—was 3.4%<0.1%1.0%——

The upper figure in a cell covers September 2025 — August 2026; the lower one and “was” cover October 2021 — August 2025.

Under the share — the 95% interval; under the median — the quartiles.

The reason does not assign blame: "respondent to seek representation" covers both a person looking for counsel and a court granting time to look. A dash means the window holds too few adjournments to name a share.

How this is counted

The recent window and the years before it are shown apart: adjournment practice changes faster than a case runs, and it is not only the frequencies that move but the reasons themselves, in different directions. Case-completion codes (8A, 8B, 8C) are separated from genuine continuances by behaviour rather than by wording: after them another hearing rarely follows, while after preparation continuances it almost always does. That is what the "follow-up" column shows, and a low value means "the case usually ended here", not "the adjournment failed". The median days figure is how far this reason pushed the next hearing; half the cases fall between the quartiles shown.

What became of appeals to the BIA

An immigration judge's decision can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The key to this table is who filed: the same outcome means opposite things when the respondent appeals and when the government does.

BIA appeal outcomes by filer
Filed byAppealsDecision stoodSent backOverturnedClosed without merits
Respondent5981%15%0%3%
nationally712,35574%13%1%11%

There are also appeals of other kinds, not counted in this table: Interlocutory Appeal — 5, Appeal of IJ MTR — 3.

How often decisions are appealed

Share of the judge's decisions that were appealed
Fiscal yearGrantedAppealed by the governmentDeniedAppealed by the respondent
FY202270% (0.6%)140% (69.6%)
FY2023480% (0.8%)4075% (66.0%)
FY2024500% (1.9%)6776% (58.6%)
FY2025210% (8.1%)11180% (64.6%)
FY20261724% (8.8%)37682% (58.4%)

In brackets, the same share across all courts. Counted by the date of the judge's decision rather than the Board's: an appeal is filed within a month, so recent years are nearly complete here — unlike the outcomes above.

Only appeals on the merits (Case Appeal) are counted: motions to the Board itself and bond appeals are different events. The same outcome means opposite things depending on the filer, which is why the bucket is called "the judge's decision stood", not "X won".

How this is counted

A dismissed appeal means the removal order stood when the respondent appealed, and that the asylum grant stood when the government did; the two do not go into one percentage. Recent years are undercounted: an appeal takes months or years to resolve, so outcomes are counted by the date of the Board's decision while the appealed share is counted by the date of the judge's decision.

Board panels

By default a single Board member decides an appeal. Referral to a three-member panel marks a case found difficult: not how the appeal ended, but how it was heard.

Appeals on the merits decided in September 2025 — August 2026: 24.

Fewer than 50 appeals decided — 24 in all. There is nothing to state a share from: referral is a rare event, and on so few the interval is wider than the whole spread between judges. Nationally 4.1% of appeals are referred.

What follows shows in the outcomes: of 9,114 referred appeals the case went back to the judge in 60.5%, against 10.1% for the rest. The release carries no grounds for referral, so what stands here is measured behaviour, not a decoded label. This is an observation, not an explanation: a panel is not stricter, it gets different cases.

How often an appeal goes to a panel

  • The whole court2% (897)
  • All U.S. courts4% (31,254)

By who filed the appeal

Share of appeals referred to a three-member panel, by who filed
Filed byAppealsnow / beforeReferredSeptember 2025 — August 2026BeforeOctober 2021 — August 2025Nationally
Respondent2435——2.6%7.2%

Under each share — the 95% interval.

The grounds for referral are not in the release: the table has no column pointing at a lookup, so in place of a reason stands the measured behaviour of the cases. And this is not a property of the judge alone: panels take cases of a particular kind, and judges see different mixes of them.

How this is counted

The grounds themselves are listed in 8 CFR 1003.1(e)(6) — all of them about complexity or a departure from law. Counting goes by the date of the Board's decision, not the date the appeal was filed: referral happens between the two, and an unresolved appeal may lack the marker simply because it has not been reached yet. The two windows are shown apart because the referral rate has moved markedly over the past year, and almost entirely among respondent appeals: without the filer axis the shift would read as a general one. A share is stated from fifty decided appeals in a window upwards: the event is rare, and on fewer the interval is wider than the whole spread between judges.

The second round after a remand

The Board sent the case back to this judge or a colleague — and this is how the second hearing ended. The return is no formality: on the first round every one of these cases had been decided, and the decision was set aside.

Completed second rounds over five years: 1. Unfinished ones are not counted here.

Fewer than 30 completed second rounds — 1 in all. There is nothing to state a share on: at that count the interval is wider than the whole spread between judges. Nationally 17.5% of second rounds end in protection.

Nationally the same judge runs the second round in 45% of cases. Outcomes must not be compared across this: cases that changed judges took longer, so shifts in practice over that time bore on them more heavily.

How often a second round ends in protection

  • The whole court9% (47)
  • All U.S. courts18% (22,363)

How the second rounds ended

How second rounds ended after the Board sent the case back
OutcomeCasesThis judgeNationally
Removal, denial1100.0%29.6%

By who filed the appeal

Second-round outcome by who filed the appeal
Filed byCasesProtection grantedProceeding terminatedNationally
Respondent1——19.7%

Under each share — the 95% interval.

The judge here is the one whose decision was appealed, not necessarily the one who ran the second round. The denominator is completed second rounds, not all remanded cases. And this is not a property of the judge alone: the Board remands cases of a particular kind, and judges see different mixes of them.

How this is counted

Counting is by the date the second round ended; unfinished rounds are excluded — among cases remanded over the past five years, about a third are still running. A share is stated from thirty completed rounds upwards: on fewer the interval is wider than the whole spread between judges. There is no "now and before" pair here as in neighbouring blocks: second rounds are rare and slow, about three per judge in a year. The history is in the yearly series — which also shows why one figure for five years is not enough: what moved the headline share was the share of terminations, not judges growing stricter.

How to cite this page

Figures on this page belong to one monthly release and are replaced whole by the next. The release label and the data cutoff are part of the citation for that reason: without them the number cannot be checked later.

Asylum Beacon. Judge McFadden, Anita. EOIR Case Data, U.S. DOJ FOIA Library, release 2026-08, data through 2026-08-31. https://asylumbeacon.com/en/judge/AMF

Methodology in full

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 give legal advice. The release lags by roughly a month, so check ACIS or Respondent Access for your current case status. The source has known gaps, including among relief applications: if something is missing here, that does not mean it is missing from your case.