Immigration court · Imperial, CA
Imperial Immigration Court
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 49.7 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Imperial'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
- 590
- Pending cases
- 9 mo
- Time to decision
Imperial in one line
Imperial's asylum grant rate is 49.7% (upper-third grant rate, roughly in line with the 48.3% national average) across 3,089 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (thin-corpus volume).
- 49.7%
- Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
- 3,089
- Merits decisions · Thin-corpus volume
- +1.4 pp
- vs. national average
- 49.7 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Imperial Immigration Court sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 49.7% across 3,089 FY2015–2025 merits (1.4 pp roughly in line with the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.
Wide judge lottery: 14.0% to 63.7% (49.7 pp) across 11 reported judges at Imperial. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
590 pending cases and an average recorded wait of 9 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
83/100
Imperial, 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 A- 9 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio A+ 0.3%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Imperial
Upper-third grant-rate neighbors for Imperial (49.7%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.
Imperial 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)
3,089 61st of 77 higher than 16 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 Imperial sits: Fast & Favorable
Each dot is one of the 41 largest immigration courts by merits decisions, split at the MEDIAN grant rate (47.6%) and median average wait (31.0 months) across this set. Imperial's own grant rate is 49.7% and its average wait is 9.1 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Imperial Immigration Court's merits outcome mix
3,089merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Upper-third court Imperial: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 78 | 26.9% |
| FY2016 | 77 | 15.6% |
| FY2017 | 131 | 36.6% |
| FY2018 | 246 | 35.8% |
| FY2019 | 533 | 50.1% |
| FY2020 | 289 | 49.5% |
| FY2021 | 360 | 56.4% |
| FY2022 | 343 | 63.6% |
| FY2023 | 290 | 65.5% |
| FY2024 | 236 | 51.3% |
| FY2025 | 506 | 44.5% |
The judge lottery at Imperial Immigration Court
11 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 63.7% (496 decisions) down to 14.0% (43 decisions) - a 49.7-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.
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)
- Cleveland Immigration Court · Cleveland, OH · 49.7% grant · 9,432 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)
- Tucson Immigration Court · Tucson, AZ · 3,195 merits · 29.9% grant
- Aurora Immigration Court · Aurora, CO · 2,888 merits · 29.5% grant
- Otero Immigration Court · Chaparral, NM · 3,408 merits · 29.5% grant
- Laredo Immigration Court · Laredo, TX · 3,575 merits · 26.1% 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 Imperial's 3,089-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. Imperial 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.