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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Figueroa, Laura C.

San Francisco 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 1, 2026 · 2,766 scheduled in all
Last decision
August 31, 2026
Now sitting at
Laredo Immigration Court
Courts worked at: 7

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.

52%

Asylum grant rate

of 1,188 decisions · FY2001–FY2026

95% interval: 49% — 55%

granted:
614
denied:
574
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 judge52% (1,188)
  • The whole court — San Francisco Immigration Court56% (89,431)
  • 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%20192020202220242026

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.

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
FY2026partial13512%7% — 18%
FY202513216%11% — 23%
FY20241017%3% — 14%
FY20237910%5% — 19%
FY202228382%77% — 86%
FY20216384%73% — 91%
FY202019063%56% — 69%
FY201920478%72% — 83%
FY200110%0% — 79%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
India29981%76% — 85%
El Salvador16633%26% — 41%
Guatemala14167%59% — 75%
Mexico12326%19% — 34%
Honduras5525%16% — 38%
China4641%28% — 56%
Nepal3776%60% — 87%
Venezuela258%2% — 25%
Russia2479%60% — 91%
Nicaragua195%1% — 25%
Colombia150%0% — 20%
Afghanistan1471%45% — 88%
Eritrea1493%69% — 99%
Pakistan1392%67% — 99%
Cuba130%0% — 23%

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

23 mo
half of cases: 7—57 mo
Cases decided
1,188
Half of cases
7—57 mo
The whole court
23 mo
NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided incasesthe case ran, medianhalf of cases, mo
FY202613510 mo6—18
FY20251325 mo4—7
FY20241014 mo3—10
FY2023795 mo4—7
FY202228354 mo38—68
FY20216359 mo31—69
FY202019025 mo16—60
FY201920447 mo13—64

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

29 mo
1.2 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 34 mo
half of proceedings: 22—38 mo
Proceedings in the queue
2,634
Half of proceedings
22—38 mo
The whole court
27 mo
Nationwide
34 mo · half: 25—45 mo
Hearing set after the cutoff
99.1% (98.6% — 99.4%) · 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

23 d
9 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 7 mo
half of cases: 15—32 d
Cases with a date set
2,614
Half of cases
15—32 d
The whole court
8 mo
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 hearing2,27622 d7.7 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 6 mo30 d0.0%0.0% — 0.2%
Individual hearing3452 mo4.8 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 11 mo4 mo0.0%0.0% — 1.1%

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

39 d
8.2 times shorter than nationwidenationwide 11 mo
half: 23 d — 3 mo
Master calendar hearings in the year
2,029
Followed by an individual hearing
16.6% (15.1% — 18.3%) · 337 of 2,029
To the individual hearing, half of cases
23 d — 3 mo
The whole court
13 mo
Nationwide
11 mo · half: 2—24 mo
  • A master calendar slot holds 5 cases at once, and the busiest one this year held 199; an individual hearing slot holds 1.
  • On a master calendar day 5 cases in all are called before the judge, and on the busiest day of the year, 199.
  • Where the person is detained, the individual hearing comes in 31 d; for the rest, in 4 mo — hearings: 215 and 122.
What was scheduled after a master calendar hearing: share of hearings and median gap
What was scheduled nexthearingssharemedian gap
An individual hearing33716.6%15.1% — 18.3%14.7% nationwide39 d
Another master calendar1,07352.9%50.7% — 55.0%52.9% nationwide27 d
Nothing: the proceeding is over60930.0%28.1% — 32.0%27.5% nationwide—
Nothing: no hearing set yet100.5%0.3% — 0.9%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.

15% of proceedings ended in absentia — 888 of 5,888.

  • This judge15% (5,888)
  • The whole court13% (369,755)
  • All U.S. courts19% (11,588,297)
Share of in absentia decisions by fiscal year
Fiscal yearProceedingsIn absentiaShare
FY2021225115%
FY202259800%
FY20236588613%
FY20247387210%
FY202579000%
FY2026partial1,36854840%

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.

Bonds

The money that buys release from custody while the case goes on. An amount is not set in every decision, and the two figures — how often and how much — only read together.

65 bond decisions in September 2025 — August 2026; an amount was set in 24 of them. 97% are attached by a custody hearing.

An amount was set fewer than 25 times — 24 in all. There is nothing to state a median on: it would describe a handful of cases rather than the judge. The national median amount is $7,500.

How often an amount is set

  • This judge, September 2025 — August 202637% (65)
  • This judge, October 2021 — August 202532% (182)
  • The whole court0% (10)
  • All U.S. courts25% (91,185)

The code table covers September 2025 — August 2026; “was” in the amount column covers October 2021 — August 2025.

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

EOIR publishes no reference for the decision codes on this field — the release contains no lookup for it, so the codes are shown as codes, next to what has been measured. The amount does not depend on the judge alone: courts see different mixes of cases, criminal histories and circumstances of arrest.

How this is counted

"Now" and "before" stand side by side because over the past year both the median amount set and the share released from custody have moved markedly. What is measured under each code is how often an amount is set and how often the person was released from custody within sixty days of the decision: three codes carry an amount almost always and the rest almost never, and that gap is what the whole calculation rests on. The released share is counted not from every decision but from those whose sixty days have already passed: for a decision a week old "not released" would mean "we do not know". Payment itself is not recorded — "released" is read from the custody history, not from a record of a bond being posted. A median is stated from twenty-five amounts upwards, and the quartiles beside it show how widely the judge varies.

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.

4,007 motions decided in October 2021 — August 2026, 1,136 of them in the last twelve months. 83% are attached to the judge by the nearest hearing.

0%50%100%98%75%83%73%59%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
FY2026incomplete17959%52% — 66%55%
FY20258073%62% — 81%71%
FY20245483%71% — 91%80%
FY20236475%63% — 84%79%
FY20228098%91% — 99%79%
Share of motions granted, by type
MotionDecidednow / beforeGrantedSeptember 2025 — August 2026BeforeOctober 2021 — August 2025Nationallynow / before
Motion for Change of Venue14371794%89% — 97%97%95% — 98%86%95%
Motion for Continuance18627160%53% — 66%83%78% — 87%56%77%
Motion to accept late filed documents12230295%90% — 98%94%91% — 96%86%90%
Motion for Video Appearance17023386%80% — 90%97%93% — 98%69%79%
Motion to Withdraw as Counsel11917891%84% — 95%89%84% — 93%91%88%
Motion to Dismiss23237—86%82% — 90%80%96%
Motion to Terminate7811073%62% — 82%79%71% — 86%59%71%
Other motion21136—65%56% — 72%68%75%
Motion to Advance for Earlier Hearing Date14120—81%73% — 87%63%65%
Motion to Substitute Counsel2193—100%96% — >99%97%96%
Motion to Reopen1587—51%40% — 61%45%67%
Motion for Voluntary Departure623887%77% — 93%66%50% — 79%79%67%

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 2,993 hearings with a stated reason in September 2025 — August 2026, 1,853 were adjourned (62%).

0 d150 d300 d182 d49 d21 d19 d27 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
FY2026incomplete1,67027 d11 d — 67 d93 d
FY20253,77419 d8 d — 34 d161 d
FY20241,83421 d9 d — 35 d146 d
FY20233,01349 d16 d — 519 d132 d
FY20224,045182 d126 d — 602 d120 d
Adjournment reasons: share of all adjournments and median days to the next hearing
ReasonAdjournmentsnow / beforeShareSeptember 2025 — August 2026NationallyFollow-upMedian days
Court closure/postponement82,486—was 19.9%0.6%5.2%——
Preparation - respondent/attorney/representative3351,74318.1%16.4% — 19.9%was 14.0%9.1%8.1%100%1912–34was 2834 nationally
IJ completion at hearing51969728.0%26.0% — 30.1%was 5.6%8.3%4.5%41%4912–88was 1928 nationally
MC to IC - merits hearing25595013.8%12.3% — 15.4%was 7.6%12.0%10.2%100%3921–103was 45309 nationally
To allow for scheduling of priority case11,045—was 8.4%5.4%2.4%——
Case transferred from detained to non-detained docket13965—was 7.7%0.2%0.4%——
IJ reassignment1137146.1%5.1% — 7.3%was 5.7%14.2%10.5%62%82–19was 12134 nationally
Respondent to seek representation1465467.9%6.7% — 9.2%was 4.4%9.3%15.3%100%3314–67was 1499 nationally
Vacated master calendar hearing3607—was 4.9%3.8%4.3%——
Data Entry Error555483.0%2.3% — 3.8%was 4.4%4.0%4.3%72%91–28was 714 nationally
Docket management (advance hearing)624003.3%2.6% — 4.3%was 3.2%1.8%1.1%35%197–42was 1557 nationally
Other respondent/respondent's attorney/representative request991955.3%4.4% — 6.5%was 1.6%2.8%2.9%93%2315–44was 4962 nationally

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
Government (DHS)2823%94%1%2%
nationally56,04917%56%9%17%
Respondent19379%11%0%10%
nationally712,35574%13%1%11%

There are also appeals of other kinds, not counted in this table: MTR BIA — 17, Bond Appeal — 15, Appeal of IJ MTR — 5, Circuit Court Remand — 4, Interlocutory Appeal — 1.

How often decisions are appealed

Share of the judge's decisions that were appealed
Fiscal yearGrantedAppealed by the governmentDeniedAppealed by the respondent
FY2021530% (1.6%)1080% (68.2%)
FY20222310% (0.6%)5287% (69.6%)
FY2023825% (0.8%)7146% (66.0%)
FY2024771% (1.9%)9422% (58.6%)
FY20252162% (8.1%)11119% (64.6%)
FY20261619% (8.8%)11937% (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: 53.

7.5%

of appeals referred to a three-member panel, September 2025 — August 2026

4 of 53 referred

95% interval 3.0% — 17.9%

before (October 2021 — August 2025) — 9.4%

nationally 4.1%

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

  • This judge, September 2025 — August 20268% (53)
  • This judge, October 2021 — August 20259% (171)
  • The whole court4% (985)
  • 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
Respondent33146—7.5%4.3% — 13.0%2.6%7.2%
Government (DHS)2025——23.7%21.5%

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: 134. Unfinished ones are not counted here.

13.4%

of them ended in protection being granted

protection in 18 of 134

95% interval 8.7% — 20.2%

nationally 17.5%

The same judge runs the second round in 42 of 134 cases — 31%. Nationally 45%. 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

  • This judge13% (134)
  • The whole court13% (4,014)
  • All U.S. courts18% (22,363)

How the second rounds ended

How second rounds ended after the Board sent the case back
OutcomeCasesThis judgeNationally
Protection granted1813.4%17.5%
Removal, but withholding or CAT granted53.7%2.2%
Removal, denial2921.6%29.6%
Proceeding terminated5138.1%36.9%
Voluntary departure10.7%2.5%
Administrative closure3022.4%10.9%

By who filed the appeal

Second-round outcome by who filed the appeal
Filed byCasesProtection grantedProceeding terminatedNationally
Government (DHS)11913.4%8.4% — 20.7%42.0%33.5% — 51.0%13.7%
Respondent15——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 Figueroa, Laura C. EOIR Case Data, U.S. DOJ FOIA Library, release 2026-08, data through 2026-08-31. https://asylumbeacon.com/en/judge/LCF

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.