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Asylum BeaconU.S. immigration court data

Judge Mcdermott, Patrick T.

LOS ANGELES — WEST LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION COURT

Not hearing cases: nothing for over two years

Last hearing
November 7, 2006
Next hearing
none scheduled
Last decision
May 24, 2018

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.

41%

Asylum grant rate

of 332 decisions · FY1988–FY2006

95% interval: 36%46%

granted:
136
denied:
196

The period has closed

This judge no longer hears cases, so the figure describes FY1988–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 judge41% (332)
  • 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%2003200420052006

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

Years with fewer than 10 decisions are not plotted (4): at that sample size the percentage is noise. They remain in the table.

Show as a table
Grant rate by fiscal year
Perioddecisionsgranted95% interval
FY20069432%23%42%
FY20057545%35%57%
FY20049948%39%58%
FY20036040%29%53%
FY199510%0%79%
FY199410%0%79%
FY198910%0%79%
FY198810%0%79%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationalitydecisionsgranted95% interval
CHINA9962%52%71%
INDONESIA5616%9%28%
ARMENIA3456%39%71%
EL SALVADOR254%1%20%
IRAN1968%46%85%
GUATEMALA186%1%26%
PAKISTAN1050%24%76%
INDIA875%41%93%
HONDURAS80%0%32%
COLOMBIA743%16%75%
UKRAINE667%30%90%
BANGLADESH580%38%96%
GEORGIA450%15%85%
RUSSIA425%5%70%
ZIMBABWE40%0%49%

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.

22 mo

median

half of cases: 15—34 mo

based on 332 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided inCasesmedianhalf of cases, mo
FY20069434 mo2637
FY20057521 mo1729
FY20049915 mo1029
FY20036020 mo1724

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
Denied475
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)255
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD237
Remand177
Dismiss Appeal/Affirm IJ's Decision99
Dismissed (Grant V/D 30 days)69
Summary Affirmance43
Termination42
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA31
Other28
Background Check Remand9
Terminate-DHS PD7
Grant with no Remand6
Summarily Dismiss3
Administratively Closed-DHS PD3
Coercive Population Control2
Withdrawal of Appeal2
Granted2
Temporary Protected Status1

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.