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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Leadbetter, Philip P.

SAN FRANCISCO — IMMIGRATION COURT

Not hearing cases: nothing for over two years

Last hearing
October 22, 2007
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
December 16, 2002
Courts worked at: 3

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.

57%

Asylum grant rate

of 1,689 decisions · FY1978–FY1996

95% interval: 55%60%

granted:
970
denied:
719

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1978–FY1996 — 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 judge57% (1,689)
  • The whole court — SAN FRANCISCO — IMMIGRATION COURT56% (89,278)
  • 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%19831987199019931996

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

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY19966784%73%91%
FY199512048%39%56%
FY199418865%58%71%
FY199311159%49%67%
FY199216355%47%62%
FY199115138%31%46%
FY199024575%69%80%
FY19899266%56%75%
FY198818782%76%87%
FY19874762%47%74%
FY198615940%32%47%
FY198512223%16%31%
FY19842413%4%31%
FY1983138%1%33%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
EL SALVADOR44944%39%48%
NICARAGUA42060%55%65%
INDIA17651%43%58%
IRAN8894%87%98%
FIJI8665%55%74%
CHINA6991%82%96%
GUATEMALA6244%32%56%
AFGHANISTAN5876%63%85%
PHILIPPINES516%2%16%
PAKISTAN3077%59%88%
PERU2584%65%94%
ETHIOPIA1493%69%99%
HONDURAS1267%39%86%
SRI LANKA1090%60%98%
LEBANON1040%17%69%

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.

18 mo

median

half of cases: 11—26 mo

based on 1,689 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY19966722 mo2026
FY199512020 mo1724
FY199418815 mo1221
FY199311111 mo919
FY199216314 mo920
FY199115119 mo1522
FY199024511 mo913
FY19899220 mo938
FY198818725 mo1932
FY19874736 mo2356

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 Decision380
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)304
Other218
Remand144
Granted137
Withdrawal of Appeal111
Denied97
Temporary Protected Status90
Sustain58
Continued33
American Baptist Church Settlement9
AFD7
Dismiss Soriano4
Termination4
Grant with no Remand3
Terminate-DHS PD3
Rejection2
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)1
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA1
Suspension Completion1
Summary Affirmance1
RET1

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.