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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Kandler, Edward R.

TACOMA — IMMIGRATION COURT

Not hearing cases: nothing for over two years

Last hearing
December 15, 2014
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
September 16, 2014
Courts worked at: 8

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, 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.

38%

Asylum grant rate

of 2,628 decisions · FY1987–FY2014

95% interval: 36%40%

granted:
997
denied:
1,631

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1987–FY2014 — not what happens in the court today. Asylum rules and the mix of cases have changed since.

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

  • This judge38% (2,628)
  • The whole court — TACOMA — IMMIGRATION COURT23% (6,548)
  • 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%199920022005200820112014

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

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (3): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY20141242%19%68%
FY20139346%36%56%
FY201213936%28%44%
FY201116748%40%55%
FY201011335%27%45%
FY200913641%33%50%
FY200818531%25%38%
FY200718237%31%45%
FY200615028%21%36%
FY200520034%27%40%
FY200423735%29%41%
FY200322140%34%46%
FY200217847%40%55%
FY200116840%33%48%
FY200022639%33%46%
FY199921835%29%42%
FY199810%0%79%
FY199710%0%79%
FY199210%0%79%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
INDIA36440%35%45%
CHINA29950%44%55%
EL SALVADOR2006%3%10%
GUATEMALA1578%5%14%
MEXICO1328%5%14%
INDONESIA11819%13%28%
KENYA11447%38%56%
FIJI9459%48%68%
RUSSIA6860%48%71%
ETHIOPIA5980%68%88%
ERITREA5192%81%97%
Former Countries5169%55%80%
PERU4935%23%49%
SIERRA LEONE4922%13%36%
UKRAINE4745%31%59%

How long a case takes

How long it took from service of the NTA to the decision on the application, for the cases this judge has already finished.

19 mo

median

half of cases: 11—29 mo

based on 2,628 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY20139330 mo2541
FY201213928 mo2237
FY201116723 mo1830
FY201011320 mo1125
FY200913622 mo1828
FY200818518 mo1523
FY200718213 mo1116
FY200615011 mo815
FY20052008 mo613
FY200423713 mo823

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 with no decision yet. A different figure from the duration of completed cases: quick cases leave the queue first, so the long ones accumulate among those still waiting.

No undecided cases in this release.

What became of appeals to the BIA

An immigration judge's decision can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. This is what the Board did with those appeals. A high share of reversals and remands tells a different story than a low grant rate alone.

What became of appeals to the BIA
BIA decisionAppeals
Dismiss Appeal/Affirm IJ's Decision664
Denied560
Remand488
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)351
Summary Affirmance291
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD228
Termination127
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)86
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA48
Other46
Administratively Closed-DHS PD40
Sustain38
Background Check Remand35
Withdrawal of Appeal35
Granted26
Summarily Dismiss26
Temporary Protected Status24
Administratively Closed13
Grant with no Remand13
Continued8
Terminate-DHS PD7
Summary Dismissal (e) no brief5
Moot Bond4
Coercive Population Control3
SUMMARY DISMISSAL - BOTH (a) & (e)2
Dismiss as Untimely2
Dismissed as Moot1
Summary Dismissal (a) inad reason on appeal1
Deferred Enforced Departure1

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.