How US Asylum Decisions Split Between Grants and Denials
National outcome split · DOJ EOIR FOIA · Sep 2026
770,780 asylum merits decisions split 48.3% granted nationally; 26 courts sit above that rate and 51 below. The median court grant rate is 39.2%, while Batavia Immigration Court (0%) and Sacramento Immigration Court (76.2%) anchor the tails.
- 48.3%
- National grant rate
- 39.2%
- Median court rate
- 20% – 39%
- Modal band (30 courts)
- 372,071
- Grants in pool
Case-weighted from 77 courts with FY2015–2025 asylum merits decisions. Not legal advice, descriptive past statistics only. Vintage: Sep 2026.
Pooling every US immigration court's asylum merits decisions from FY2015 to FY2025 - a total of 770,780 cases decided on the merits, the national asylum grant rate is 48.3%: 372,071 grants against 398,709 denials. That single national figure hides wide variation: across the 77 courts that decided asylum cases, the grant rate ranges from 0% at Batavia Immigration Court up to 76.2% at Sacramento Immigration Court.
Not legal advice. These are historical statistical aggregates from DOJ EOIR data, not a prediction for any individual case. Outcomes depend on facts specific to each case: consult a licensed immigration attorney or accredited representative for guidance on your situation.
The national grant / denial split
| Outcome | Cases | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Asylum granted | 372,071 | 48.3% |
| Asylum denied | 398,709 | 51.7% |
These are asylum (I-589) cases decided on the merits, granted or denied. Cases administratively closed, transferred, or still pending are not merits decisions and are not counted here.
How grant rates spread across courts
Grouping the 77 courts by their grant rate shows where the bulk of decisions are made. The largest group is the 20% – 39% band, holding 30 courts.
| Grant-rate band | Courts | Asylum decisions |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20% | 9 | 24,085 |
| 20% – 39% | 30 | 243,958 |
| 40% – 59% | 30 | 330,304 |
| 60% – 79% | 8 | 172,433 |
| 80% or higher | 0 | 0 |
How the national rate relates to individual courts
The 48.3% national figure is case-weighted - 372,071 grants out of 770,780 merits decisions, not a simple average of the 77 court-level rates. That weighting matters: 26 courts grant above the national line while 51 grant below it, yet the median court sits at 39.2%, close to the national mean because most decisions concentrate in the 20% – 39% band (30 courts, 243,958 decisions).
Tail courts still move large volumes: Sacramento Immigration Court at 76.2% decided 6,907 merits cases, while Batavia Immigration Court at 0% decided 1. A denied asylum case may still be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, these rates describe court-level historical patterns, not any single applicant's odds.
Source: DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) - FOIA Case Data Asylum (I-589) merits decisions by court, FY2015–2025 · 2026