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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Vandello, J. P.

AURORA — IMMIGRATION COURT

Not hearing cases: nothing for over two years

Last hearing
July 3, 2014
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
June 25, 2015
Courts worked at: 12

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.

25%

Asylum grant rate

of 2,767 decisions · FY1968–FY2015

95% interval: 23%26%

granted:
683
denied:
2,084

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1968–FY2015 — 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 judge25% (2,767)
  • The whole court — AURORA — IMMIGRATION COURT21% (4,024)
  • 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%198419901996200220082014

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
FY20142711%4%28%
FY2013370%0%9%
FY2012220%0%15%
FY2011244%1%20%
FY2010170%0%18%
FY2009310%0%11%
FY20082119%8%40%
FY20072623%11%42%
FY20063633%20%50%
FY20053424%12%40%
FY20048328%19%38%
FY200313046%38%55%
FY200212125%18%33%
FY200110137%28%46%
FY200012724%17%32%
FY199917130%23%37%
FY199815633%26%40%
FY199712911%7%17%
FY199615623%17%30%
FY19959313%8%21%
FY19947311%6%20%
FY19931087%4%14%
FY19924112%5%26%
FY19916425%16%37%
FY19907321%13%31%
FY198925534%29%40%
FY198820442%35%49%
FY198712527%20%36%
FY198618917%12%23%
FY19858010%5%19%
FY19841250%25%75%
FY19801100%21%100%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
EL SALVADOR5419%7%12%
NICARAGUA29636%31%42%
GUATEMALA2956%4%10%
IRAN13150%42%59%
RUSSIA11454%45%63%
CHINA8825%17%35%
PERU7643%33%55%
MEXICO731%0%7%
INDIA635%2%13%
ETHIOPIA6253%41%65%
SOMALIA5650%37%63%
INDONESIA4825%15%39%
AFGHANISTAN4053%37%67%
COLOMBIA3946%32%61%
UGANDA3931%19%46%

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.

11 mo

median

half of cases: 6—19 mo

based on 2,767 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY2013377 mo59
FY2009315 mo58
FY2006368 mo448
FY2005345 mo328
FY20048310 mo620
FY200313012 mo419
FY200212110 mo414
FY200110110 mo523
FY200012713 mo720
FY199917114 mo1120

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 Decision1,159
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)713
Remand477
Denied395
Withdrawal of Appeal365
Other311
Granted296
Temporary Protected Status225
Summary Affirmance188
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD166
Sustain146
Continued66
Termination61
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA57
Summarily Dismiss52
Dismiss Soriano51
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)39
Dismiss as Untimely38
Moot Bond28
American Baptist Church Settlement18
Grant with no Remand17
Background Check Remand10
SUMMARY DISMISSAL - BOTH (a) & (e)9
Summary Dismissal (e) no brief9
Granted Soriano6
Rejection6
Summary Dismissal (a) inad reason on appeal6
Terminate-DHS PD5
Denied Soriano4
Dismissed as Moot2
Other Soriano2
1
Deferred Enforced Departure1
MB1
ADD1

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.