Immigration court · Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Immigration Court
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 92.9 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Philadelphia's bench. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 11,412 decisions FY2015–2025 (#23 of 77).
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 55.2%
- Asylum grant rate
- 44.8%
- Asylum denial rate
- 79,942
- Pending cases
- 31 mo
- Time to decision
Philadelphia in one line
Philadelphia's asylum grant rate is 55.2% (upper-third grant rate, above the 48.3% national average) across 11,412 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).
- 55.2%
- Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
- 11,412
- Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume
- +6.9 pp
- vs. national average
- 92.9 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Philadelphia Immigration Court sits in the upper third of tracked courts at 55.2% across 11,412 FY2015–2025 merits (6.9 pp above the 48.3% national average). Historical docket context only.
Wide judge lottery: 0.0% to 92.9% (92.9 pp) across 22 reported judges at Philadelphia. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
Heavy-corpus court (#23 of 77): peer grids below match on grant rate and merits volume; methodology covers EOIR extract limits.
Court outlook score
Court outlook score
49/100
Philadelphia, 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- 55.2%
Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025
- Time to decision F 31 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio F 29.0%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Philadelphia
Upper-third grant-rate neighbors for Philadelphia (55.2%), with bench-spread stamps for the same-docket judge lottery.
Philadelphia 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)
11,412 23rd of 77 higher than 54 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 Philadelphia sits: Favorable but Slow
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. Philadelphia's own grant rate is 55.2% and its average wait is 31.4 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Philadelphia Immigration Court's merits outcome mix
11,412merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Upper-third court Philadelphia: fiscal-year grant path across FY2015–2025 merits.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 185 | 64.9% |
| FY2016 | 204 | 76.5% |
| FY2017 | 404 | 63.1% |
| FY2018 | 630 | 61.4% |
| FY2019 | 1,221 | 46.0% |
| FY2020 | 995 | 39.2% |
| FY2021 | 914 | 42.8% |
| FY2022 | 1,080 | 65.2% |
| FY2023 | 1,435 | 62.3% |
| FY2024 | 1,440 | 65.8% |
| FY2025 | 2,904 | 51.3% |
The judge lottery at Philadelphia Immigration Court
22 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 92.9% (28 decisions) down to 0.0% (36 decisions) - a 92.9-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 ILD | 28 | |
| 2 | Judge ASG | 486 | |
| 3 | Judge DKU | 497 | |
| 4 | Judge AYG | 75 | |
| 5 | Judge CMH | 480 | |
| 6 | Judge LTF | 377 | |
| 7 | Judge JHS | 1,064 | |
| 8 | Judge AOC | 503 | |
| 9 | Judge LDC | 112 | |
| 10 | Judge RPM | 660 | |
| 11 | Judge SAM | 932 | |
| 12 | Judge DCV | 229 | |
| 13 | Judge PKE | 306 | |
| 14 | Judge JCA | 1,888 | |
| 15 | Judge MCL | 1,961 | |
| 16 | Judge MAF | 322 | |
| 17 | Judge FHR | 758 | |
| 18 | Judge MIA | 108 | |
| 19 | Judge WMD | 199 | |
| 20 | Judge KQG | 161 | |
| 21 | Judge ASH | 38 | |
| 22 | Judge JHW | 36 | |
Nationwide courts with similar asylum profiles
Heavy-corpus peers for Philadelphia: ABS(grant-rate) and merits-volume matches outside the same state.
Similar grant rate (± asylum merits volume)
- Denver Immigration Court · Denver, CO · 54.8% grant · 11,218 merits
- San Antonio Immigration Court · San Antonio, TX · 54.6% grant · 11,574 merits
- Hyattsville Immigration Court · Hyattsville, MD · 54.4% grant · 11,100 merits
- Chelmsford Immigration Court (Detained) · Chelmsford, MA · 53.3% grant · 942 merits
Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)
- Memphis Immigration Court · Memphis, TN · 11,643 merits · 40.8% grant
- Charlotte Immigration Court · Charlotte, NC · 12,358 merits · 35.3% grant
- Atlanta - W. Peachtree Street Immigration Court · Atlanta, GA · 12,430 merits · 39.2% grant
- Sterling Immigration Court · Sterling, VA · 10,044 merits · 48.8% grant
Why judge-level rates vary · Browse every tracked immigration court
Heavy-corpus court Philadelphia: 11,412 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Philadelphia's 11,412-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. Philadelphia 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.