Non-U.S. citizens sometimes seek citizenship to avoid persecution in their native countries. It’s called seeking asylum.
Research shows wide differences in the asylum denial rate by judges in federal immigration cases.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found courts with the highest range in asylum denial were New York and San Francisco, meaning it’s harder to anticipate case outcomes at those locations.
Both immigration courts had judges denying asylum more than 90% of the time. Yet there were other judges that denied asylum in less than 4% of cases.
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TRAC researchers point out this does not imply that certain judges have bias.
It can depend, for instance, on the size of the court.
Those with more judges like New York and San Francisco will probably have more judges with differing views and case outcomes.
Investigations
Hartford’s immigration court is the opposite. It has just three judges and a narrower range of rulings. Asylum is regularly denied 65 to 75% of the time.
