Immigration judge · San Francisco Immigration Court
Immigration Judge SMS
According to the DOJ EOIR FOIA release (vintage 2026-08), signature read: 1,035 merits decisions place Judge SMS among the busiest IJ codes in the FOIA release. Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 1,035 decisions FY2015–2025 (#180 of 1.7K).
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 70.1%
- Asylum grant rate
- 29.9%
- Asylum denial rate
- 1,035
- Asylum decisions
Judge SMS in one line
Judge SMS's asylum grant rate is 70.1% (upper-third grant rate, above the 48.3% national average) across 1,035 FY2015-2025 merits decisions (heavy-corpus volume).
- 70.1%
- Asylum grant rate · Upper-third grant rate
- 1,035
- Merits decisions · Heavy-corpus volume
- +21.8 pp
- vs. national average
"SMS" 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
1,035merits decisions FY2015–2025
Judge SMS 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)
70.1% 210th of 1696 higher than 1,486 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 % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 2019 | 193 | 144 | 49 | 74.6% |
| 2020 | 228 | 162 | 66 | 71.1% |
| 2021 | 122 | 80 | 42 | 65.6% |
| 2022 | 235 | 153 | 82 | 65.1% |
| 2023 | 202 | 154 | 48 | 76.2% |
| 2024 | 50 | 31 | 19 | 62.0% |
| 2025 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 25.0% |
IJ rate-band chamber
Anonymized codes nearest Judge SMS's grant rate
This chamber tracks nationwide IJs nearest Judge SMS's 70.1% 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 SMS are shown here.
Same-bench poles at San Francisco
Same-bench spread at San Francisco: Judge SMS runs 70.1% - 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.
Heavy-corpus IJ code SMS: 1,035 FY2015–2025 merits in DOJ EOIR FOIA data. Statistical information only, not legal advice.
Read our methodology - how Judge SMS's 1,035-decision EOIR row is sourced, computed, and verified.
DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA bulk case data for IJ SMS at San Francisco Immigration Court; merits-decision volume 1,035. PlainImmigration computed grant/denial aggregates FY2015–FY2025; Merits volume is heavy-corpus at 1,035 decisions FY2015–2025 (#180 of 1.7K).
Judge SMS's figures are computed from EOIR case-level records - merits-decision volume 1,035, 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 SMS'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.