Immigration court · Chelmsford, MA
Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained)
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 69.9 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Chelmsford's bench. Grant rate sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 53.3% (above the 48.3% national average).
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 53.3%
- Asylum grant rate
- 46.7%
- Asylum denial rate
- 10
- Pending cases
- 39 mo
- Time to decision
Chelmsford in one line
Chelmsford's asylum grant rate is 53.3% (upper-third grant rate, above the 48.3% national average) across 942 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (thin-corpus volume).
- 53.3%
- Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
- 942
- Merits decisions · Thin-corpus volume
- +5.0 pp
- vs. national average
- 69.9 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained) sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 53.3% across 942 FY2015–2025 merits (5.0 pp above the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.
Wide judge lottery: 23.6% to 93.5% (69.9 pp) across 15 reported judges at Chelmsford. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
Long-wait docket: 10 pending and 39 mo average recorded wait. Peer grids below place Chelmsford on grant-rate and caseload axes; methodology covers extract limits.
Court outlook score
Court outlook score
64/100
Chelmsford, 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 A- 53.3%
Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025
- Time to decision F 39 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio A+ 0.1%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Chelmsford
Upper-third grant-rate neighbors for Chelmsford (53.3%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.
Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained) 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)
942 71st of 77 higher than 6 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 Chelmsford sits: Favorable but Slow
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 (31.4 months) across this set. Chelmsford's own grant rate is 53.3% and its average wait is 39.2 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained)'s merits outcome mix
942merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Upper-third court Chelmsford: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2023 | 2 | 100.0% |
| FY2024 | 774 | 53.9% |
| FY2025 | 166 | 50.0% |
The judge lottery at Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained)
15 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 93.5% (31 decisions) down to 23.6% (89 decisions) - a 69.9-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 NIF | 31 | |
| 2 | Judge AMS | 26 | |
| 3 | Judge SAA | 101 | |
| 4 | Judge JBY | 69 | |
| 5 | Judge AMO | 71 | |
| 6 | Judge JAZ | 34 | |
| 7 | Judge NYG | 36 | |
| 8 | Judge DDO | 34 | |
| 9 | Judge JMW | 59 | |
| 10 | Judge NSM | 42 | |
| 11 | Judge GEP | 100 | |
| 12 | Judge LSY | 92 | |
| 13 | Judge HAK | 103 | |
| 14 | Judge JAH | 42 | |
| 15 | Judge YMC | 89 | |
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)
- Baltimore Immigration Court · Baltimore, MD · 52.8% grant · 16,562 merits
- New York - Broadway Immigration Court · New York, NY · 52.5% grant · 28,250 merits
- Hyattsville Immigration Court · Hyattsville, MD · 54.4% grant · 11,100 merits
- San Antonio Immigration Court · San Antonio, TX · 54.6% grant · 11,574 merits
Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)
- Port Isabel Immigration Court (Detained) · Los Fresnos, TX · 789 merits · 12.8% grant
- Atlanta - Ted Turner Drive Immigration Court · Atlanta, GA · 1,165 merits · 14.7% grant
- Portland Immigration Court · Portland, OR · 1,229 merits · 42.1% grant
- Florence Immigration Court · Florence, AZ · 1,821 merits · 23.0% 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 Chelmsford's 942-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. Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained)'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.