In 2023 so far, immigration courts have approved nearly half of all asylum cases they've heard:
There's a remarkable spread in asylum leniency by judge and by city. In Houston, judge Bruce Imbacuan has granted asylum in 0% of the 105 cases he's heard. In San Francisco, judge Gordon Louis has granted asylum in 99% of the 208 cases he's heard. Here are the numbers for all immigration courts with more than 2,000 cases over the past six years:
That's a range of 5% to 67%, and none of this is because of a few outlier judges. Each of these courts has ten or more judges and the data is for the past six years of decisions.
This is very interesting. Are there counts to go along with it? (not just percentages)
So in broad, hand waving terms a 50/50 shot at getting in by claiming asylum. But city makes a huge difference.
Those numbers scream that many, if not most, applicants are NOT getting a fair hearing. In particular, I can say with great confidence that Bruce Imbacuan has his mind made up before he hears any evidence.
As does Gordon Louis.
At least Gordon Louis is not perfectly consistent. It appears that he rejected two cases, whereas Imbacuan accepted zero. However, the numbers for both of those judges strongly suggest that there is A LOT of work to be done to upgrade the quality of immigration judges to the point where applicants will actually get the fair hearing the law calls for.
To see what's actually going on, you need to know more about the applicants, such as where they are coming from. Kevin does not give the raw numbers either. Some of these places, such as San Diego, must be getting far more than places such as Boston - I would think. Just averaging the percentages in his graph doesn't give the overall percentage unless they all process the same number.
Then it's a good thing that Kevin didn't just average all of the percentages, as even a cursory glance at the two charts makes clear.
"In 2023 so far, immigration courts have approved nearly half of all asylum cases they've heard"
This could be an actual total, but Kevin doesn't give that figure. If not, and the cities with the lower approval figures are also the ones with the most processing, the percentage could be lower than nearly half.
Sorry, the 47% figure for 2023 is apparently the actual total.
Yes, as I said, even a cursory glance at the tables makes it clear that the by year figures mathematically cannot be the average of by state percentages. If you average all 25 of the by city values, you get 27%, which is lower than any of the years between 2017 and 2022.
"Some of these places, such as San Diego, must be getting far more than places such as Boston - I would think."
The graph does mention that all places have at least 2000 cases, but to answer your question, it is actually the other way around in that particular case. Boston has close to the double of cases as San Diego
San Diego: 3353
Boston: 5895
San Francisco and NY process far more than everyone else, then LA, Houston, and Miami are in the next tier so to speak, and then everyone else is more or less in the same ballpark
Top five in % of claims granted
San Francisco: 22913 = 15351 granted
New York: 38761 = 25195 granted
Boston: 5895 = 3242 granted
Chicago: 6173 = 3087 granted
Baltimore: 9915 = 4164 granted
Bottom five:
Atlanta: 2290 = 114 granted
Houston: 14305 = 1287 granted
Charlotte: 3290 = 329 granted
LA North: 5210 = 625 granted
Miami: 17317 = 2078 granted
My question is how are people assigned to a particular court. Are more dubious cases (those that in the pre assessment meet the minimum to get a court hearing, but it is a weak case) sent to the places that deny most of them, and those with the strongest cases sent to the places with the highest approval rates?
Is it random or by some other arbitrary method unrelated to the strength of the claim?
Or are these success rates the result of political views and who appointed the judges overseeing the cases? For instance, in San Francisco Judge Deiss and Judge Phan are the two judges who have decided the most cases, 1393 and 1234 respectively, with Deiss granting double the claims of Phan (89.1% vs 45.9%). Deiss was appointed by Loretta Lynch, and Phan by William Barr.
It would be interesting to compare the number of immigration attorneys per 10,000 residents with percentage of cases granted, Because I wonder if the grant rates are related to more clients being represented by a competent lawyer, as well as more “liberal cities”
It's also hard to tell from the judges if they just got a string of good cases or bad. Immigration comes in pretty large clumps.
You would expect some variation from random scatter, but not enough to make it plausible that 105 out of 105 cases were bad cases.
So, if your asylum claim gets rejected, come back for a second try and hope for a nicer judge. Got it.
When judges are this different, that's a sign that the law is too vague. Congress should move to clarify asylum criteria.
I think there is a straightforward explanation for at least some if not all of that disparity. There are a lot of nuances but roughly speaking:
* To be entitled to asylum, you have to show that you were persecuted on the basis of race, religion, political affiliation, etc. in your home country. Generally awful conditions in your home country don't amount to an asylum claim. (One could discuss whether this is a good and fair distinction but it is what the law presently requires.)
* The persecution requirement means that people coming from countries where there is a lot of political and ethnic persecution have better odds of prevailing than people coming from countries that have poor economic conditions and random violence.
* It follows that people coming from some Asian and African countries (with long records of persecution) have better odds of prevailing on asylum claims than people coming from Latin American countries (where things are generally bad but where it may be more difficult to claim persecution).
* Different immigration courts see different mixes of asylum claimant home countries. People who are admitted to the USA on the basis of a claim of asylum are assigned to immigration authorities near to their point of entry for resolution of the their asylum claim. It's not surprising that immigration courts near the southern border of the US are seeing more asylum claims that don't prevail.