Immigration court · Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Immigration Court
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 55.7 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Cleveland's bench. Grant rate sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 49.7% (roughly in line with the 48.3% national average).
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 49.7%
- Asylum grant rate
- 50.3%
- Asylum denial rate
- 48,643
- Pending cases
- 27 mo
- Time to decision
Cleveland in one line
Cleveland's asylum grant rate is 49.7% (upper-third grant rate, roughly in line with the 48.3% national average) across 9,432 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (mid-band volume).
- 49.7%
- Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
- 9,432
- Merits decisions · Mid-band volume
- +1.4 pp
- vs. national average
- 55.7 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Cleveland Immigration Court sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 49.7% across 9,432 FY2015–2025 merits (1.4 pp roughly in line with the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.
Wide judge lottery: 18.8% to 74.5% (55.7 pp) across 20 reported judges at Cleveland. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
48,643 pending cases and an average recorded wait of 27 months describe administrative pressure in this snapshot. Use the peer comparisons below to place this court against similar caseloads and grant-rate profiles, then consult the methodology for the extract's scope and limits.
Court outlook score
Court outlook score
53/100
Cleveland, weighted across 3 of 3 tracked dimensions
A weighted composite of asylum grant rate, time to decision, and backlog ratio against the full tracked-court corpus. It describes the historical docket, not the odds of any one case, and does not weigh legal representation, case type, or judge assignment.
- Asylum grant rate B+ 49.7%
Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025
- Time to decision D 27 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio F 25.6%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Cleveland
Upper-third grant-rate neighbors for Cleveland (49.7%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.
Cleveland Immigration Court vs all courts by asylum merits caseload
Where this court's FY2015–2025 asylum merits-decision count sits among every tracked immigration court (inventory signal, not a quality ranking)
9,432 27th of 77 higher than 50 of 77 courts
Immigration courts, banded by asylum merits-decision count
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more courts. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source DOJ EOIR asylum merits decisions · FY2015–2025
Where Cleveland sits: Fast & Favorable
Each dot is one of the 40 largest immigration courts by merits decisions, split at the MEDIAN grant rate (47.5%) and median average wait (31.2 months) across this set. Cleveland's own grant rate is 49.7% and its average wait is 26.9 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Cleveland Immigration Court's merits outcome mix
9,432merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Upper-third court Cleveland: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 181 | 35.9% |
| FY2016 | 251 | 39.8% |
| FY2017 | 379 | 40.4% |
| FY2018 | 444 | 35.1% |
| FY2019 | 904 | 31.6% |
| FY2020 | 842 | 29.5% |
| FY2021 | 686 | 46.2% |
| FY2022 | 608 | 63.0% |
| FY2023 | 979 | 55.4% |
| FY2024 | 1,585 | 58.8% |
| FY2025 | 2,573 | 58.6% |
The judge lottery at Cleveland Immigration Court
20 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 74.5% (55 decisions) down to 18.8% (85 decisions) - a 55.7-point spread on the same bench. Rates based on smaller decision counts carry more statistical noise.
Judge names below are the anonymized judge codes EOIR assigns in its public case-data release, not verified public identities. EOIR does not publish immigration judges' full names in this dataset. See our methodology for detail.
| # | Judge | Decisions | Asylum grant rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Judge BND | 55 | |
| 2 | Judge DCW | 833 | |
| 3 | Judge JSA | 550 | |
| 4 | Judge MLT | 761 | |
| 5 | Judge TTN | 138 | |
| 6 | Judge PKB | 353 | |
| 7 | Judge DDP | 758 | |
| 8 | Judge MEH | 965 | |
| 9 | Judge BIM | 541 | |
| 10 | Judge JRW | 657 | |
| 11 | Judge JNO | 700 | |
| 12 | Judge ABM | 732 | |
| 13 | Judge TAR | 989 | |
| 14 | Judge RDD | 312 | |
| 15 | Judge TWJ | 175 | |
| 16 | Judge DWE | 201 | |
| 17 | Judge JFM | 143 | |
| 18 | Judge CRS | 319 | |
| 19 | Judge GRB | 38 | |
| 20 | Judge KHU | 85 | |
Nationwide courts with similar asylum profiles
Cross-state peers matched on grant rate and merits caseload, not the same-state browse list.
Similar grant rate (± asylum merits volume)
- Imperial Immigration Court · Imperial, CA · 49.7% grant · 3,089 merits
- Harlingen Immigration Court · Harlingen, TX · 49.5% grant · 4,776 merits
- El Paso Immigration Court · El Paso, TX · 50.0% grant · 5,113 merits
- Newark Immigration Court · Newark, NJ · 48.9% grant · 18,739 merits
Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)
- Salt Lake City Immigration Court · West Valley City, UT · 8,831 merits · 59.3% grant
- Sterling Immigration Court · Sterling, VA · 10,044 merits · 48.8% grant
- Fort Snelling Immigration Court · Fort Snelling, MN · 8,783 merits · 37.6% grant
- New Orleans Immigration Court · New Orleans, LA · 8,667 merits · 41.5% grant
Why judge-level rates vary · Browse every tracked immigration court
Data from the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) via FOIA bulk case data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Cleveland's 9,432-decision EOIR court row is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. EOIR, Immigration Court Statistics Immigration court outcomes by court and case type · 2025
Every figure on PlainImmigration is rendered directly from federal immigration court records, no number is typed in by an editor. Cleveland Immigration Court's outcome and grant-rate figures are recomputed live from the EOIR case-level extract on every request, never hand-typed. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-09-05.