Immigration Judge Analytics Methodology

Scope and assignment

The directory contains the 763-person current official EOIR universe. Current court and leadership assignments come from the official EOIR roster used to construct the coverage map. Historical observed locations are shown separately from the current assignment.

Outcomes and denominators

EOIR administrative data keeps proceedings, hearings, applications, representation, appeals, and asylum outcomes as separate measures. Grant and denial rates use merits decisions as the denominator: grants plus denials. Other or procedural outcomes remain visible but are not silently folded into those rates.

Direct coverage

Each current person has either direct EOIR FOIA activity or a verified zero-data state. A zero-data state means the identity and EOIR code are verified but no completed judge-specific activity appears in the source snapshot; scheduled activity remains separate.

Rankings and minimum decisions

Judge denial-rate rankings include only judges with at least 35 merits decisions. This minimum keeps very small denominators from dominating the comparison; it is a descriptive stability rule, not a claim of statistical significance. Judges below the cutoff remain available in the full directory.

Court rankings

A court's denial rate is decision-weighted: the court's total denials divided by its total merits decisions across qualifying current judges. It is not a simple average of judge percentages. Court groupings use current EOIR assignments, while the underlying outcomes are historical.

Nationality

Nationality rows aggregate EOIR-recorded outcomes by judge code, nationality, and decision year. A rate is shown only when the row has at least 35 merits decisions; smaller published cells retain their counts but display the rate as unavailable. Nationality comparisons can reflect case mix and should not be read as predictions for an individual case.

Annual trends

The Trends view aggregates the direct EOIR annual records by fiscal year. The latest year may be partial and is labeled accordingly. Future schedules are not counted as observed or completed activity.

Sources and limitations

Primary analytics source: official EOIR FOIA administrative data and the official current EOIR roster. These measures describe recorded administrative activity and are not a finding about judicial quality, strictness, leniency, recommendation, or causation. Counts and rates may reflect case mix, representation, nationality, detention status, geography, time, and source coverage.