The Busiest US Immigration Courts by Caseload
Operational caseload rank · DOJ EOIR FOIA · Sep 2026
New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court leads operational volume with 1,069,375 proceedings (6.4% of the national caseload). The top 20 courts here carry 58.1% of all proceedings while their asylum grant rates span a 54.3-point band, volume and grant rate move independently.
- 1,069,375
- New York - Federal Plaza proceedings
- 74.7%
- That court’s asylum grant rate
- 21.0%
- Pending share of its caseload
- 3,052,076
- National pending backlog
Caseload counts all proceedings in the FOIA extract; grant rate uses FY2015–2025 asylum merits decisions only. Not legal advice. Vintage: Sep 2026.
Caseload, the count of all proceedings a court has handled, measures operational volume, a different thing from the asylum grant rate. By that measure New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court is the busiest US immigration court, with 1,069,375 total proceedings (6.4% of the national caseload), ahead of Miami Immigration Court at 1,054,795. The table below ranks the 20 busiest courts and sets each court's caseload next to its asylum grant rate and its open (pending) backlog, so a high-volume court is not mistaken for a high-grant or a low-backlog one.
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.
20 busiest courts by caseload
Caseload counts every proceeding in the FOIA extract (all case types, not limited to FY2015–2025). Pending counts open proceedings with a charging document dated 2015 or later (a national backlog of 3,052,076 cases). The asylum grant rate is computed only from asylum (I-589) cases decided on the merits (granted ÷ granted + denied), FY2015–2025, a third, separate population from the operational caseload and backlog columns.
Volume, backlog, and grant rate as three columns
Among these 20 courts, asylum grant rates range from 20.4% to 74.7% - a 54.3-point spread even though all share high operational volume. New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court combines the largest caseload (1,069,375) with a pending backlog of 224,664 (21.0% of its proceedings still open). That operational pressure is separate from how decided asylum cases split, see the grant-rate column beside each caseload figure.
Source: DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) - FOIA Case Data Operational caseload (all proceedings in FOIA extract) + pending backlog (OSC≥2015) beside asylum merits grant rate (FY2015–2025) - three populations, not one FY window · 2026