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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Vahid-Tehrani, Gita

LOS ANGELES — WEST LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION COURT

No hearings scheduled ahead

Last hearing
July 16, 2025
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
March 31, 2025
Courts worked at: 5

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.

58%

Asylum grant rate

of 1,868 decisions · FY1985–FY2024

95% interval: 56%60%

granted:
1,082
denied:
786
other protection: withholding and the Convention Against Torture:
1

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.

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1985–FY2024 — 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 judge58% (1,868)
  • The whole court — LOS ANGELES — WEST LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION COURT26% (102,953)
  • 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%199620032008201320182024

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

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (9): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY20243583%67%92%
FY20233876%61%87%
FY20221464%39%84%
FY2021944%19%73%
FY20203027%14%44%
FY20191315%4%42%
FY20189460%49%69%
FY20177876%65%84%
FY20164562%48%75%
FY20154459%44%72%
FY20145869%56%79%
FY201310969%60%77%
FY20129146%36%56%
FY201111756%47%64%
FY201013062%53%69%
FY20099963%53%72%
FY20087059%47%69%
FY20077965%54%74%
FY200612375%66%82%
FY200514768%60%75%
FY200414058%50%66%
FY200317244%36%51%
FY20027040%29%52%
FY200120%0%66%
FY200030%0%56%
FY199950%0%43%
FY1998130%0%23%
FY1997150%0%20%
FY1996150%0%20%
FY199560%0%39%
FY199110%0%79%
FY199010%0%79%
FY198910%0%79%
FY198510%0%79%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
CHINA54871%67%75%
ARMENIA19570%63%76%
EL SALVADOR16118%13%25%
GUATEMALA15327%20%34%
INDONESIA11350%41%59%
MEXICO11023%16%31%
IRAN6975%64%84%
RUSSIA5575%62%84%
EGYPT4787%75%94%
INDIA4173%58%84%
HONDURAS3318%9%34%
SYRIA3184%67%93%
COLOMBIA2665%46%81%
PHILIPPINES1856%34%75%
KENYA1675%51%90%

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.

42 mo

median

half of cases: 22—63 mo

based on 1,869 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY20243523 mo2278
FY20233871 mo54123
FY20203049 mo4159
FY20189452 mo4474
FY20177859 mo3671
FY20164561 mo4877
FY20154460 mo5069
FY20145860 mo4178
FY201310962 mo5469
FY20129160 mo4866

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
Denied633
Remand562
Dismiss Appeal/Affirm IJ's Decision444
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD271
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)265
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)123
Summary Affirmance91
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA80
Background Check Remand64
Termination56
Other42
Administratively Closed-DHS PD33
Sustain27
Withdrawal of Appeal25
Summarily Dismiss16
Dismiss as Untimely10
ROP Returned to Court to correct deficiency8
Granted6
Grant with no Remand5
Terminate-DHS PD4
Administratively Closed2
Temporary Protected Status2
Coercive Population Control2
Summary Dismissal (e) no brief2
Withdrawal-DHS PD1
Summary Dismissal (G) untimely or waived appeal1
Moot Bond1

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.