Immigration judge · Chicago Immigration Court
Immigration Judge SME
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: denial rate 84.4% is Judge SME's most extreme outcome share in the corpus. Grant rate sits in the lower third of tracked IJs at 15.6% (below the 48.3% national average). Merits volume is mid-band at 180 decisions FY2015–2025.
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 15.6%
- Asylum grant rate
- 84.4%
- Asylum denial rate
- 180
- Asylum decisions
Judge SME in one line
Judge SME's asylum grant rate is 15.6% (lower-third grant rate, below the 48.3% national average) across 180 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (mid-band volume).
- 15.6%
- Asylum grant rate · Lower-third grant rate
- 180
- Merits decisions · Mid-band volume
- -32.7 pp
- vs. national average
"SME" 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.
This judge's merits outcome mix
180merits decisions FY2015–2025
Judge SME 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)
15.6% 1456th of 1696 higher than 240 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 % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 86 | 19 | 67 | 22.1% |
| 2020 | 86 | 9 | 77 | 10.5% |
| 2021 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 0.0% |
IJ rate-band chamber
Anonymized codes nearest Judge SME's grant rate
This chamber tracks nationwide IJs nearest Judge SME's 15.6% grant rate, a lower-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 SME are shown here.
Same-bench poles at Chicago
Same-bench spread at Chicago: Judge SME runs 15.6% - below the 48.3% national average among IJs with at least 20 merits here.
Nationwide judges with similar asylum caseload
Immigration judges at other courts with a comparable merits-decision volume, distinct from same-bench grant-rate peers above.
Lower-third grant-rate IJ code SME (15.6%) in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Judge SME's 180-decision EOIR row is sourced, computed, and verified.
DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA bulk case data for IJ SME at Chicago Immigration Court; asylum denial rate 84.4%. PlainImmigration computed grant/denial aggregates FY2015–FY2025; Merits volume is mid-band at 180 decisions FY2015–2025.
Judge SME's figures are computed from EOIR case-level records - asylum denial rate 84.4%, 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 SME'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.