What is Judge SML's grant rate?

Immigration Judge SML has an overall grant rate of 95.5% across 1,257 decisions at the San Francisco Immigration Court. The denial rate is 4.5%.

Where does Judge SML serve?

Judge SML serves at the San Francisco Immigration Court. You can view all judges and court-wide statistics on the court page.

How many cases has Judge SML decided?

Judge SML has decided 1,257 cases on record in DOJ EOIR data, including 1,201 grants and 56 denials.

Does a judge's grant rate predict my case outcome?

No. Judge SML's 95.5% grant-leaning history aggregates many case types and nationalities, your merits hearing depends on your facts, relief sought, and representation. Always consult a licensed immigration attorney.

Judges → San Francisco Immigration Court

Immigration judge · San Francisco Immigration Court

Immigration Judge SML

Name: Immigration Judge SML - Case Outcome Data
Creator: PlainImmigration
Published: 2025-09-30
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: Judge SML's 95.5% grant rate is among the highest in the tracked IJ corpus. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 1,257 decisions FY2015–2025 (#121 of 1.7K).

Compiled by PlainImmigration

Data updated 2026-09-05

95.5%
Asylum grant rate: 4.5%
Asylum denial rate: 1,257
Asylum decisions

Judge SML in one line

Judge SML's asylum grant rate is 95.5% (upper-third grant rate, above the 48.3% national average) across 1,257 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).

95.5%
Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate: 1,257
Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume: +47.2 pp
vs. national average

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"SML" 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

1,257merits decisions FY2015–2025

Granted1,201(96%)Denied56(4%)

Statistical data only. Judge SML's 95.5% grant-leaning history still mixes case types and nationalities, not a forecast for a future merits hearing. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.

Judge SML 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)

95.5% 2nd of 1696 higher than 1,694 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	1	0	1	0.0%
2020	3	0	3	0.0%
2022	292	286	6	97.9%
2023	399	388	11	97.2%
2024	275	263	12	95.6%
2025	287	264	23	92.0%

IJ rate-band chamber

Anonymized codes nearest Judge SML's grant rate

This chamber tracks nationwide IJs nearest Judge SML's 95.5% 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 SML are shown here.

IJ	Grant	Δ vs here	Merits	Stamp	Court
ET	94.8%	-0.7 pp	58	THIN	Harlingen
PMM	94.2%	-1.3 pp	866	FULL	New York - Federal Plaza
JB	97.2%	+1.7 pp	607	FULL	New York - Federal Plaza
NIF	93.5%	-2.0 pp	31	THIN	Chelmsford
AKR	93.4%	-2.1 pp	181	LIGHT	New York - Broadway
PRM	93.3%	-2.2 pp	1,053	FULL	Sacramento

Same-bench poles at San Francisco

Same-bench spread at San Francisco: Judge SML runs 95.5% - 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 LCH · Los Angeles - N. Los Angeles Street Immigration Court · 1,257 merits · 31.3% grant
IJ CMM · San Antonio Immigration Court · 1,256 merits · 58.9% grant
IJ CSE · New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court · 1,255 merits · 79.0% grant
IJ JRN · Charlotte Immigration Court · 1,263 merits · 45.1% grant

Heavy-corpus IJ code SML: 1,257 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.

Read our methodology - how Judge SML's 1,257-decision EOIR row is sourced, computed, and verified.

DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA bulk case data for IJ SML at San Francisco Immigration Court; asylum grant rate 95.5%. PlainImmigration computed grant/denial aggregates FY2015–FY2025; Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 1,257 decisions FY2015–2025 (#121 of 1.7K).

Judge SML's figures are computed from EOIR case-level records - asylum grant rate 95.5%, 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 SML'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.