Methodology & Data Sources

Data Source

All data comes from the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) case data released via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. EOIR is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice that administers the nation's immigration court system. PlainImmigration currently profiles 77 immigration courts and 1,696 judges across 770,780 asylum merits decisions (FY2015–2025; case-weighted national grant rate 48.3%). Counts come from the live database. EOIR maintains records on millions of immigration cases decided since 2001, making this the most comprehensive public source of immigration court outcome data available. The FOIA dataset includes individual case records with outcome dispositions, judge assignments, court locations, respondent nationalities, types of relief sought, and case processing dates.

What the Data Contains

• Court of record: Which immigration court (city/location) heard the case
• Judge assigned: The immigration judge who decided the case
• Nationality: Country of origin of the respondent
• Relief type sought: Asylum, withholding of removal, Convention Against Torture protection, cancellation of removal, etc.
• Case outcome: Whether relief was granted, denied, terminated, or resulted in another disposition

Processing Pipeline

1. Obtain EOIR case data files via FOIA request or from published FOIA releases
2. Parse case records and standardize outcome codes (grant, denial, termination, etc.)
3. Aggregate by judge: total cases decided, grant rate, denial rate, and breakdown by nationality and relief type
4. Aggregate by court location: total caseload, average grant rate, backlog size, and top nationalities represented
5. Aggregate by nationality: overall grant rate, top receiving courts, and most common relief types sought
6. Load into our searchable database with judge, court, and nationality indexes

How the Asylum Grant Rate Is Calculated

The grant rate shown for every court, judge, and nationality is the asylum grant rate - the same measure used by TRAC Immigration and academic researchers. It is computed from the application-level records in the EOIR data (the tbl_Court_Appln table), not from the overall proceeding disposition. Specifically:

• We isolate asylum (I-589) applications (application code ASYL) that were decided on the merits - i.e. either granted or denied by the immigration judge.
• Grant rate = applications granted ÷ (applications granted + applications denied). Applications that were administratively closed, withdrawn, abandoned, or not adjudicated on the merits are excluded from both the numerator and the denominator.
• The figures on this site cover asylum decisions issued in fiscal years 2015 through 2025. A judge or court is shown only when it has enough asylum merits decisions in that window to report a stable rate.

Asylum grant rates must not be read against the same window as operational volume. Three populations appear side by side on some pages and stay deliberately uncoupled: (1) asylum grant rate - I-589 merits decisions in fiscal years 2015–2025 only; (2) caseload - every proceeding in the FOIA extract, all case types, not limited to that FY window; (3) pending cases and average time to decision - open or completed proceedings using charging-document / completion dates (pending requires an OSC date in 2015 or later). The EOIR archive itself goes back to 2001; that wider archive window is never stamped onto the FY2015–2025 asylum aggregates.

A fourth, deliberate split: court-rolled asylum totals (sum of court rows = 770,780) and judge-rolled asylum totals (sum of judge rows) do not match 1:1. Some FY2015–2025 asylum merits land on a court without a resolvable anonymized judge code in the FOIA extract, so national and court pages use the court rollup while judge pages use only judge-attributed rows. Never average the two populations into one headline.

EOIR identifies courts by short hearing-location codes (e.g. NYC, SFR) and nationalities by its own code scheme; we map these to full court names, cities, and country names using EOIR's published reference tables (Appendix N hearing-location codes and the EOIR Case Data code key). Immigration judges are identified by EOIR's anonymized judge codes, exactly as released in the FOIA data.

Data Vintage and Update Frequency

The EOIR FOIA dataset covers cases decided from 2001 through the most recent available release. EOIR processes FOIA requests periodically, and updated datasets may include newly decided cases as well as corrections to previously released records. PlainImmigration updates its database when new EOIR FOIA releases become available. Because FOIA processing takes time, there is typically a lag of several months between cases being decided and their appearance in the published dataset.

Accuracy Commitment

PlainImmigration reproduces EOIR case data exactly as released through FOIA. Grant rates, case counts, and outcome breakdowns are calculated directly from the underlying case records using the methodology described above. No subjective scoring, editorial weighting, or case selection is applied. When data is incomplete for a particular judge, court, or nationality due to FOIA record limitations, this is displayed transparently rather than estimated. Judge and court profiles always show the total number of cases on which statistics are based, enabling users to assess statistical reliability.

Corpus placement (#N of M)

Court, judge, and nationality detail pages carry a corpus-relative placement derived from EOIR asylum-merits decision volume, never a hand-picked list:

• Courts - ranked by total_cases DESC (most asylum merits decisions = #1). Aligns with caseload research listings.
• Judges - ranked by total_decisions DESC (same basis as the highest-caseload judges ranking).
• Nationalities - ranked by total_cases DESC among nationality profiles with at least one merits decision.

Ties break by slug so equal volumes share a stable ordinal. Grant-rate and backlog rankings on the hub are separate cuts; the corpus placement above answers only "where does this entity sit by decision volume." Placements are informational and are not recommendations about any case, court, or judge.

Limitations

• EOIR FOIA data may contain incomplete records, especially for older cases, cases where records were sealed, or cases involving minors. Some fields may be redacted or missing in the FOIA release.
• Grant rate variance between judges reflects many factors beyond individual decision-making, including the mix of case types (asylum vs. cancellation of removal), nationality mix of cases assigned, respondent representation rates, and the specific legal claims presented. Comparisons between judges should be made cautiously and with this context in mind.
• The data reflects past outcomes. Immigration court practices, legal standards, and policy guidance from the Attorney General change over time, and historical grant rates may not reflect current conditions at any given court.
• This is a statistical data resource only, nothing on PlainImmigration constitutes legal advice. Every immigration case is unique. Always consult a licensed immigration attorney for advice specific to your situation.
• PlainImmigration is not affiliated with DOJ, EOIR, or any government agency.

Editorial Workflow

Court, judge, and nationality pages on PlainImmigration are built directly from the DOJ EOIR FOIA case records, the statistics, tables, and charts are computed from the underlying data, never invented, estimated, or interpolated. The plain-language guides and methodology pages are written and maintained by our editorial process. We do not accept payment for coverage, placement, or rankings, and we apply no subjective scoring or editorial weighting to any court or judge statistic. Where the source data is incomplete for a given court, judge, or nationality, we show fewer entities rather than estimate, a judge or court appears only when it has enough asylum merits decisions to report a reliable rate.

Frequently Asked Questions

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