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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Rast, G. M.

ATLANTA — IMMIGRATION COURT

Not hearing cases: nothing for over two years

Last hearing
November 30, 2006
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
April 24, 2008
Courts worked at: 10

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.

10%

Asylum grant rate

of 2,005 decisions · FY1986–FY2006

95% interval: 9%12%

granted:
207
denied:
1,798

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1986–FY2006 — 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 judge10% (2,005)
  • The whole court — ATLANTA — IMMIGRATION COURT9% (18,506)
  • 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%199019941997200020032006

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

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (1): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY20061520%7%45%
FY20055910%5%20%
FY20045613%6%24%
FY20039124%17%34%
FY20028221%13%31%
FY20015511%5%22%
FY20001436%3%12%
FY19993124%2%7%
FY19983343%1%5%
FY19973071%0%3%
FY19961513%1%7%
FY199510112%7%20%
FY19947726%17%37%
FY199311523%16%31%
FY19924240%27%56%
FY19914762%47%74%
FY19901724%10%47%
FY198910%0%79%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
GUATEMALA4580%0%1%
EL SALVADOR2720%0%2%
MEXICO1622%1%5%
CHINA1496%3%11%
SOMALIA10115%9%23%
COLOMBIA936%3%13%
IRAN4459%44%72%
ETHIOPIA4240%27%56%
HONDURAS400%0%9%
INDIA3811%4%24%
PAKISTAN320%0%11%
NIGERIA326%2%20%
LIBERIA2730%16%48%
INDONESIA268%2%24%
NICARAGUA2313%5%32%

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.

6 mo

median

half of cases: 3—10 mo

based on 2,005 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY20055918 mo1524
FY20045617 mo1327
FY20039115 mo1221
FY20028210 mo514
FY2001558 mo414
FY20001436 mo49
FY19993125 mo36
FY19983344 mo36
FY19973074 mo26
FY19961518 mo511

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 Decision499
Denied255
Remand253
Summary Affirmance184
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)174
Withdrawal of Appeal127
Other79
Termination59
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)57
Granted53
Sustain52
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD49
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA40
Temporary Protected Status37
Summarily Dismiss35
Dismiss Soriano25
Dismiss as Untimely22
Continued11
Moot Bond8
Deferred Enforced Departure6
Grant with no Remand6
Background Check Remand6
Coercive Population Control4
Rejection4
Summary Dismissal (e) no brief4
SUMMARY DISMISSAL - BOTH (a) & (e)3
Granted Soriano3
Summary Dismissal (a) inad reason on appeal3
Terminate-DHS PD3
Dismissed as Moot2
Other Soriano2
Summary Dismissal (o) Other1
Administrative Return1

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.