Judge Zanfardino, Richard M.

Hearing cases: hearings are scheduled

Last hearing: January 14, 2026
Next hearing: September 2, 2026 · 56 scheduled in all
Last decision: February 14, 2024

Courts worked at: 2

Hearings scheduled here

PORTLAND — IMMIGRATION COURT2016—2026 · 20,663 hearings

Worked here before

TACOMA — IMMIGRATION COURT2016—2018 · 943 hearings

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.

23%

Asylum grant rate

of 856 decisions · FY2017–FY2023

95% interval: 20% — 26%

granted:: 194
denied:: 662

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 judge23% (856)
The whole court — PORTLAND — IMMIGRATION COURT31% (7,087)
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

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

Show as a table

Grant rate by fiscal year
Period	decisions	granted	95% interval
FY2023	26	62%	43% — 78%
FY2022	121	26%	19% — 35%
FY2021	11	45%	21% — 72%
FY2020	204	19%	14% — 25%
FY2019	242	26%	21% — 32%
FY2018	116	15%	9% — 22%
FY2017	136	16%	11% — 23%

By applicant nationality

Grant rate by nationality, largest volumes first
Nationality	decisions	granted	95% interval
MEXICO	357	6%	4% — 9%
GUATEMALA	174	16%	11% — 22%
HONDURAS	57	26%	17% — 39%
EL SALVADOR	43	14%	7% — 27%
HAITI	32	3%	1% — 16%
INDIA	31	16%	7% — 33%
VENEZUELA	21	95%	77% — 99%
RUSSIA	16	88%	64% — 97%
CHINA	11	91%	62% — 98%
CAMEROON	9	89%	56% — 98%
UKRAINE	9	78%	45% — 94%
ERITREA	8	75%	41% — 93%
SOMALIA	6	67%	30% — 90%
SYRIA	6	100%	61% — 100%
NICARAGUA	5	20%	4% — 62%

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.

36 mo

median

half of cases: 10—46 mo

based on 856 cases

NTA-to-decision duration by fiscal year
Decided in	Cases	median	half of cases, mo
FY2022	121	41 mo	38—60
FY2020	204	37 mo	16—51
FY2019	242	40 mo	14—46
FY2018	116	6 mo	4—38
FY2017	136	6 mo	4—8

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 decision	Appeals
Dismiss Appeal/Affirm IJ's Decision	222
Remand	63
Withdrawal of Appeal	25
Dismissed (Voluntary Departure Granted)	21
Terminate-DHS PD	17
Summary Affirmance	11
Termination	11
Moot Bond	9
Lacks Jurisdiction - BIA	7
Summary Dismissal (e) no brief	6
Denied	5
Summarily Dismiss	4
Administratively Closed	4
SUMMARY AFFIRMANCE/VD	3
Withdrawal-DHS PD	3
Summary Dismissal (G) untimely or waived appeal	3
ROP Returned to Court to correct deficiency	2

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.