Immigration court · Chaparral, NM
Otero Immigration Court
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 63.2 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Otero's bench. Grant rate sits in the lower third of tracked courts at 29.5% (below the 48.3% national average). Judge lottery spans 63.2 pp on the same bench.
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 29.5%
- Asylum grant rate
- 70.5%
- Asylum denial rate
- 473
- Pending cases
- 3 mo
- Time to decision
Otero in one line
Otero's asylum grant rate is 29.5% (lower-third grant rate, below the 48.3% national average) across 3,408 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (thin-corpus volume).
- 29.5%
- Asylum grant rate · Lower-third grant rate
- 3,408
- Merits decisions · Thin-corpus volume
- -18.8 pp
- vs. national average
- 63.2 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Otero Immigration Court sits in the lower third of tracked courts at 29.5% across 3,408 FY2015–2025 merits (18.8 pp below the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.
Wide judge lottery: 0.0% to 63.2% (63.2 pp) across 14 reported judges at Otero. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
473 pending cases and an average recorded wait of 3 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
64/100
Otero, 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 29.5%
Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025
- Time to decision A+ 3 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio A- 0.7%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Otero
Lower-third grant-rate neighbors for Otero (29.5%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.
Otero 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)
3,408 59th of 77 higher than 18 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 Otero sits: Fast but Tough
Each dot is one of the 41 largest immigration courts by merits decisions, split at the MEDIAN grant rate (47.5%) and median average wait (31.0 months) across this set. Otero's own grant rate is 29.5% and its average wait is 3.2 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Otero Immigration Court's merits outcome mix
3,408merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Lower-third court Otero: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 33 | 0.0% |
| FY2016 | 18 | 5.6% |
| FY2017 | 279 | 21.9% |
| FY2018 | 289 | 19.7% |
| FY2019 | 604 | 21.0% |
| FY2020 | 238 | 21.0% |
| FY2021 | 221 | 34.4% |
| FY2022 | 512 | 57.2% |
| FY2023 | 456 | 52.4% |
| FY2024 | 327 | 18.0% |
| FY2025 | 431 | 10.2% |
The judge lottery at Otero Immigration Court
14 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 63.2% (68 decisions) down to 0.0% (34 decisions) - a 63.2-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 ERT | 68 | |
| 2 | Judge BTR | 854 | |
| 3 | Judge JKM | 112 | |
| 4 | Judge IEG | 45 | |
| 5 | Judge LFZ | 122 | |
| 6 | Judge JP1 | 784 | |
| 7 | Judge REG | 360 | |
| 8 | Judge SMR | 50 | |
| 9 | Judge KFH | 336 | |
| 10 | Judge MP1 | 106 | |
| 11 | Judge DHG | 36 | |
| 12 | Judge SGW | 122 | |
| 13 | Judge DST | 52 | |
| 14 | Judge HRG | 34 | |
Nationwide courts with similar asylum profiles
Lower-third grant-rate peers for Otero, plus caseload matches on a second axis.
Similar grant rate (± asylum merits volume)
- Aurora Immigration Court · Aurora, CO · 29.5% grant · 2,888 merits
- Houston - Smith Street Immigration Court · Houston, TX · 29.2% grant · 29,412 merits
- Tucson Immigration Court · Tucson, AZ · 29.9% grant · 3,195 merits
- Tacoma Immigration Court · Tacoma, WA · 27.7% grant · 3,999 merits
Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)
- Laredo Immigration Court · Laredo, TX · 3,575 merits · 26.1% grant
- Imperial Immigration Court · Imperial, CA · 3,089 merits · 49.7% grant
- Eloy Immigration Court · Eloy, AZ · 3,884 merits · 32.0% grant
- Port Isabel Immigration Court · Los Fresnos, TX · 3,999 merits · 17.0% grant
Why judge-level rates vary · Browse every tracked immigration court
Lower-third grant-rate court Otero (29.5%) in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Otero's 3,408-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. Otero 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.