Immigration judge · Chicago Immigration Court

Immigration Judge ELT

According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: Judge ELT's 70.3% grant rate is among the highest in the tracked IJ corpus. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 488 decisions FY2015–2025 (#554 of 1.7K).

Data updated 2026-09-05

70.3%
Asylum grant rate
29.7%
Asylum denial rate
488
Asylum decisions

Judge ELT in one line

Judge ELT's asylum grant rate is 70.3% (upper-third grant rate, above the 48.3% national average) across 488 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).

70.3%
Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
488
Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume
+22.0 pp
vs. national average
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"ELT" is the anonymized judge code DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) assigns in its public case-data release, not a verified public identity. EOIR does not publish immigration judges' full names in this dataset, so this code should not be read as confirming, or attributing these statistics to, any specific named individual. See our methodology for detail.

Statistical data only. Judge ELT's 70.3% grant-leaning history still mixes case types and nationalities, not a forecast for a future merits hearing. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.

Judge ELT vs all tracked IJs by asylum grant rate

Where this judge's FY2015–2025 asylum grant rate sits among every tracked immigration judge (a leniency measure, not a quality ranking)

70.3% 206th of 1696 higher than 1,490 of 1,696 judges

Immigration judges, banded by asylum grant rate

Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more judges. 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

Year-by-Year Outcomes

Historical asylum merits decisions for this anonymized EOIR judge code. Annual rows can be thin, and are not a forecast of any future case.

FY Decisions Grants Denials Grant %
2020 1 0 1 0.0%
2023 12 11 1 91.7%
2024 155 108 47 69.7%
2025 320 224 96 70.0%

IJ rate-band chamber

Anonymized codes nearest Judge ELT's grant rate

This chamber tracks nationwide IJs nearest Judge ELT's 70.3% grant rate, an upper-third corpus rate, with THIN/LIGHT/FULL/HEAVY merits stamps on each peer row.

1,695 other immigration judges nationwide have a tracked asylum grant rate; the 6 closest matches to Judge ELT are shown here.

IJ Grant Δ vs here Merits Stamp Court
SDL 70.3% same 222 LIGHT Los Angeles - West
EDS 70.2% -0.1 pp 731 FULL Annandale
JSF 70.2% -0.1 pp 191 LIGHT Orlando
WDN 70.4% +0.1 pp 564 FULL Los Angeles - West
SMS 70.1% -0.2 pp 1,035 FULL San Francisco
LYB 70.1% -0.2 pp 374 LIGHT New York - Varick Street

Same-bench poles at Chicago

Same-bench spread at Chicago: Judge ELT runs 70.3% - above both the 48.3% national average and several benchmates with at least 20 merits.

Nationwide judges with similar asylum caseload

Other courts' busiest IJ codes by merits volume, a caseload peer set orthogonal to the ABS(grant-rate) chamber above.

  • IJ NNA · Salt Lake City Immigration Court · 488 merits · 63.1% grant
  • IJ SME · Dallas Immigration Court · 487 merits · 55.0% grant
  • IJ MNN · Miami Immigration Court · 489 merits · 37.8% grant
  • IJ ASG · Philadelphia Immigration Court · 486 merits · 71.4% grant

Heavy-corpus IJ code ELT: 488 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.

DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA bulk case data for IJ ELT at Chicago Immigration Court; asylum grant rate 70.3%. PlainImmigration computed grant/denial aggregates FY2015–FY2025; Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 488 decisions FY2015–2025 (#554 of 1.7K).

Judge ELT's figures are computed from EOIR case-level records - asylum grant rate 70.3%, not hand-typed editorial values. justice.gov/eoir/foia-library-0

Every figure on PlainImmigration is rendered directly from federal immigration court records, no number is typed in by an editor. Judge ELT's grant/denial/merits 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.