The Busiest US Immigration Courts by Caseload
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 971,630 total proceedings (6.6% of the national caseload), ahead of Miami Immigration Court at 931,601. 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 all proceedings handled; pending counts open proceedings not yet decided (a national backlog of 2,826,869 cases). The asylum grant rate is computed only from asylum (I-589) cases decided on the merits (granted ÷ granted + denied), FY2015–2025, a separate figure from the operational caseload.
Why volume and grant rate move independently
A court's caseload is driven by where people live and where they are placed into proceedings, not by how it rules on asylum. The busiest courts here include both high-grant courts (such as 74.9% at New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court) and lower-grant courts, which is why caseload and grant rate must be read as two separate columns rather than one combined ranking. The pending column shows operational pressure, open cases awaiting a decision, which again is distinct from how the decided asylum cases split.
These are descriptive past statistics, not forecasts, and they describe court-level patterns, not the odds of any individual case.
According to the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review's FOIA case-data release, the national immigration court system recorded 14,801,513 total proceedings and a pending backlog of 2,826,869 cases as of its most recent published extract (accessed 2026-07-28). See our methodology for how caseload, backlog, and the asylum grant rate are each computed from the underlying EOIR records.
Source: DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) - FOIA Case Data Court caseload, pending cases, and asylum merits decisions, FY2015–2025 · 2026