Courts → Houston, TX

Immigration court · Houston, TX

Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court

According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 55.6 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Houston - Smith Street's bench. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 29,412 decisions FY2015–2025 (#5 of 77).

Data updated 2026-09-05

29.2%
Asylum grant rate
70.8%
Asylum denial rate
10,408
Pending cases
32 mo
Time to decision

Houston - Smith Street in one line

Houston - Smith Street's asylum grant rate is 29.2% (lower-third grant rate, below the 48.3% national average) across 29,412 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).

29.2%
Asylum grant rate · Lower-third grant rate
29,412
Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume
-19.1 pp
vs. national average
55.6 pp
Judge-level grant spread · wide
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What this court's record shows

Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court sits in the lower third of tracked courts at 29.2% across 29,412 FY2015–2025 merits (19.1 pp below the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.

Wide judge lottery: 0.0% to 55.6% (55.6 pp) across 38 reported judges at Houston - Smith Street. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.

Heavy-corpus court (#5 of 77): peer grids below match on grant rate and merits volume; methodology covers EOIR extract limits.

Court outlook score

D

Court outlook score

42/100

Houston - Smith Street, 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 F 29.2%

    Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025

  • Time to decision F 32 mo

    Average recorded months from filing to decision

  • Backlog ratio B 3.1%

    Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload

EOIR bench spread roll

Grant-rate neighbourhood for Houston - Smith Street

Lower-third grant-rate neighbors for Houston - Smith Street (29.2%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.

SPREAD 55.6pp WIDE JUDGES 38 WAIT MID PEND 10,408 GRANT 29.2% RANK #5 of 77
Houston - Smith Street29.2%Chaparral, NM29.5%Aurora, CO29.5%Tucson, AZ29.9%Tacoma, WA27.7%
Asylum grant rate · Houston - Smith Street highlighted · DOJ EOIR FY2015–2025

Houston - Smith Street 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)

29,412 5th of 77 higher than 72 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 Houston - Smith Street sits: Slow & Tough

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. Houston - Smith Street's own grant rate is 29.2% and its average wait is 31.6 months.

Grant rate vs. average wait time, 40 largest courts by merits decisions (DOJ EOIR FY2015–2025). Houston - Smith Street highlighted. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 30 entities by Asylum grant rate (X) and Average wait (months) (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. Favorable but SlowSlow & ToughFast & FavorableFast but Tough 20%40%60%80% 10mo20mo30mo40mo50mo Asylum grant rate Average wait (months) Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court: grant rate vs. average wait among the largest immigration courts
Grant rate vs. average wait time, 40 largest courts by merits decisions (DOJ EOIR FY2015–2025). Houston - Smith Street highlighted.

How to read this

  • Fast & Favorable
  • Favorable but Slow
  • Fast but Tough
  • Slow & Tough
Statistical data only. Houston - Smith Street's 70.8% denial-leaning history often tracks case mix and representation gaps, not a forecast for a future merits hearing. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.
Granted8594Denied20818
Asylum Outcomes at Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court - 29,412 merits decisions, FY2015–2025

Grant rate over time

Lower-third court Houston - Smith Street: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.

Fiscal year Decisions Grant rate
FY2015 408 17.9%
FY2016 2,037 19.9%
FY2017 2,421 26.1%
FY2018 3,983 28.0%
FY2019 5,423 21.7%
FY2020 4,504 22.9%
FY2021 356 39.3%
FY2022 2,055 31.4%
FY2023 2,595 49.6%
FY2024 1,511 52.4%
FY2025 4,119 31.5%

The judge lottery at Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court

38 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 55.6% (124 decisions) down to 0.0% (27 decisions) - a 55.6-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 SHH 124
55.6%
2 Judge EHS 344
47.1%
3 Judge BQN 1,065
46.8%
4 Judge JDO 351
43.0%
5 Judge KFL 50
40.0%
6 Judge JBE 29
37.9%
7 Judge MZR 910
37.6%
8 Judge AKN 1,432
36.6%
9 Judge LLU 150
36.0%
10 Judge GMP 2,338
32.2%
11 Judge BHA 4,423
30.3%
12 Judge LWA 770
29.9%
13 Judge SG1 733
29.9%
14 Judge GEE 4,623
28.7%
15 Judge DER 42
28.6%
16 Judge EBS 39
28.2%
17 Judge SEG 1,408
28.1%
18 Judge ZJF 460
27.6%
19 Judge MG1 1,841
27.5%
20 Judge SBN 1,917
27.1%
21 Judge CMR 849
26.5%
22 Judge JAM 179
25.1%
23 Judge AET 40
25.0%
24 Judge RCJ 43
23.3%
25 Judge RJ1 904
23.0%
26 Judge EMK 262
22.9%
27 Judge DHF 117
20.5%
28 Judge MTG 261
20.3%
29 Judge HAR 1,790
19.9%
30 Judge CBA 421
19.7%
31 Judge HRG 29
13.8%
32 Judge SME 25
12.0%
33 Judge BLH 50
10.0%
34 Judge BIM 116
9.5%
35 Judge JTL 36
8.3%
36 Judge EC3 62
8.1%
37 Judge RW 791
7.8%
38 Judge CTN 27
0.0%

Nationwide courts with similar asylum profiles

Heavy-corpus peers for Houston - Smith Street: ABS(grant-rate) and merits-volume matches outside the same state.

Similar grant rate (± asylum merits volume)

Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)

Why judge-level rates vary · Browse every tracked immigration court

Heavy-corpus court Houston - Smith Street: 29,412 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.

Read our methodology - how Houston - Smith Street's 29,412-decision EOIR court row is sourced, computed, and verified.

DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA bulk case data for Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court; judge grant-rate spread 55.6 pp. PlainImmigration computed grant/denial aggregates FY2015–FY2025; Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 29,412 decisions FY2015–2025 (#5 of 77).

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. Houston - Smith Street 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.