Immigration court · Santa Ana, CA
Santa Ana Immigration Court
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: a 52.2 pp judge-level grant spread is the widest lottery stamp on Santa Ana's bench. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 15,413 decisions FY2015–2025 (#15 of 77).
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 47.2%
- Asylum grant rate
- 52.8%
- Asylum denial rate
- 21,532
- Pending cases
- 25 mo
- Time to decision
Santa Ana in one line
Santa Ana's asylum grant rate is 47.2% (mid-band grant rate, roughly in line with the 48.3% national average) across 15,413 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).
- 47.2%
- Asylum grant rate · Mid-band grant rate
- 15,413
- Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume
- -1.1 pp
- vs. national average
- 52.2 pp
- Judge-level grant spread · wide
What this court's record shows
Santa Ana Immigration Court recorded 15,413 asylum merits decisions in the FY2015–2025 EOIR extract. Its 47.2% grant rate is 1.1 percentage points roughly in line with the 48.3% national rate. That comparison describes the historical docket, not the likelihood of an outcome in a future case.
Wide judge lottery: 31.1% to 83.3% (52.2 pp) across 28 reported judges at Santa Ana. Case mix and assignment still shape the court aggregate.
Heavy-corpus court (#15 of 77): peer grids below match on grant rate and merits volume; methodology covers EOIR extract limits.
Court outlook score
Court outlook score
57/100
Santa Ana, 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- 47.2%
Share of merits decisions granting relief, FY2015-2025
- Time to decision C- 25 mo
Average recorded months from filing to decision
- Backlog ratio D 15.0%
Pending cases as a share of the court's own total caseload
EOIR bench spread roll
Grant-rate neighbourhood for Santa Ana
Nearest grant-rate peers for Santa Ana, where the 52.2 pp judge lottery is the standout bench stamp.
Santa Ana 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)
15,413 15th of 77 higher than 62 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 Santa Ana sits: Fast but 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. Santa Ana's own grant rate is 47.2% and its average wait is 24.5 months.
How to read this
- Fast & Favorable
- Favorable but Slow
- Fast but Tough
- Slow & Tough
Santa Ana Immigration Court's merits outcome mix
15,413merits decisions FY2015–2025
Grant rate over time
Asylum grant rate by fiscal year at Santa Ana Immigration Court.
| Fiscal year | Decisions | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 1 | 0.0% |
| FY2016 | 1 | 0.0% |
| FY2021 | 1 | 100.0% |
| FY2022 | 695 | 62.3% |
| FY2023 | 2,792 | 61.7% |
| FY2024 | 3,988 | 48.1% |
| FY2025 | 7,935 | 40.3% |
The judge lottery at Santa Ana Immigration Court
28 judges with enough asylum decisions to report. Grant rates run from 83.3% (162 decisions) down to 31.1% (1,017 decisions) - a 52.2-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 VAL | 162 | |
| 2 | Judge WMM | 265 | |
| 3 | Judge NBW | 438 | |
| 4 | Judge DKM | 43 | |
| 5 | Judge JWO | 344 | |
| 6 | Judge JOH | 753 | |
| 7 | Judge AMF | 553 | |
| 8 | Judge TTI | 529 | |
| 9 | Judge HH | 756 | |
| 10 | Judge AFN | 906 | |
| 11 | Judge ABK | 758 | |
| 12 | Judge LCH | 608 | |
| 13 | Judge KNH | 350 | |
| 14 | Judge CB1 | 142 | |
| 15 | Judge LJF | 856 | |
| 16 | Judge ROA | 662 | |
| 17 | Judge JEN | 689 | |
| 18 | Judge HRL | 429 | |
| 19 | Judge GSS | 609 | |
| 20 | Judge JNW | 372 | |
| 21 | Judge WRL | 680 | |
| 22 | Judge PIE | 566 | |
| 23 | Judge MWC | 594 | |
| 24 | Judge LWP | 184 | |
| 25 | Judge ING | 866 | |
| 26 | Judge AEN | 636 | |
| 27 | Judge CDM | 514 | |
| 28 | Judge JER | 1,017 | |
Nationwide courts with similar asylum profiles
Heavy-corpus peers for Santa Ana: ABS(grant-rate) and merits-volume matches outside the same state.
Similar grant rate (± asylum merits volume)
- Dallas Immigration Court · Dallas, TX · 47.4% grant · 12,879 merits
- Las Vegas Immigration Court · Las Vegas, NV · 47.6% grant · 6,581 merits
- Orlando Immigration Court · Orlando, FL · 48.4% grant · 15,998 merits
- New York - Varick Street Immigration Court · New York, NY · 48.7% grant · 19,001 merits
Similar merits caseload (± grant rate)
- Baltimore Immigration Court · Baltimore, MD · 16,562 merits · 52.8% grant
- Houston - Greenspoint Park Immigration Court · Houston, TX · 13,837 merits · 33.9% grant
- Seattle Immigration Court · Seattle, WA · 17,027 merits · 37.8% grant
- Atlanta - W. Peachtree Street Immigration Court · Atlanta, GA · 12,430 merits · 39.2% grant
Why judge-level rates vary · Browse every tracked immigration court
Heavy-corpus court Santa Ana: 15,413 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Santa Ana's 15,413-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. Santa Ana 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.