This article appears in the Chicago Sun-Times:
If you're a political refugee afraid to go back to your homeland, pray you get a woman judge or a Northerner.
A male judge sitting in a Southern court is about twice as likely to reject your asylum plea, according to research from two Georgetown University professors.
"The fact that women are more sympathetic to asylum seekers -- that is certainly a factor, and maybe Southerners don't like foreigners as much," Federal Appellate Judge Richard Posner said with a chuckle. "Maybe people in big cities are more used to having large [less] indigenous populations. Maybe it's different in more homogenous areas of the United States."
Posner has been the most outspoken appellate judge criticizing the decisions of federal immigration judges and he sits on the appellate court most likely to grant asylum pleas -- the Chicago-based 7th Circuit. Posner spoke this past week at a seminar by the Georgetown professors -- Philip Schrag and Andrew Schoenholtz who are compiling the book about how U.S. Courts handle asylum cases.
What they found was utter randomness -- some judges who refuse all asylum requests, others who grant almost all.
"There is a great deal of persecution in the world, but there also are a great deal of people who want to come to the United States -- they'll come here illegally and try to stay here with asylum," Posner said.
Using data they obtained through Freedom of Information requests, Schrag and Schoenholtz charted the progress of asylum cases from the hearing officers who first rule on the cases, to the immigration judges who those rulings can be appealed to, to the Board of Immigration Affairs (BIA) in Virginia to the federal appellate courts that represent the last hope for the refugees.
At the immigration judge stage, they found judges in Atlanta granted only 12 percent of asylum requests, while judges in New York granted 52 percent and judges in San Francisco granted 54 percent. Even within those jurisdictions, the rulings were all over the map, they said. One New York judge granted asylum in six percent of the cases; another New York judge granted asylum in 91 percent of cases.
Asylum-seekers with no attorney won only 16 percent of the time. Those with an attorney won 46 percent of the time.
One statistic that caught the professors by surprise: the 78 female immigration judges granted asylum in 54 percent of cases; while the 169 male judges granted it in 37 percent of cases.
Early on, the Bush administration slashed the number of judges on the Board of Immigration Affairs. It had the effect the administration wanted: The overworked judges began denying without comment a far greater percentage of asylum requests. That boosted the number of cases appealed to the federal appellate courts, prompting an outcry from Posner.
Posner has criticized the lawyers who represent the refugees, the front-line hearing officers, the translators, the immigration judges, the State Dept. documents those judges rely on in making their rulings, and the BIA members who often write no opinions to justify their rulings.
The Chicago district reverses more than 30 percent of the BIA's denials of asylum, compared to the next-highest district, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, which reverses about 20 percent of the board's rulings.
Lowering the workload of the judges would help them to take more time on each case and properly consider them, Posner said.
"The 7th Circuit doesn't have one of the heaviest workloads," Posner said, and laughed as he added, "Maybe that's why we reverse so many of the appeals."
Congressional committees have expressed interest in Schrag and Schoenholtz' work and the professors hope the new administration will use it to revamp the asylum process.
If you're a political refugee afraid to go back to your homeland, pray you get a woman judge or a Northerner.
A male judge sitting in a Southern court is about twice as likely to reject your asylum plea, according to research from two Georgetown University professors.
"The fact that women are more sympathetic to asylum seekers -- that is certainly a factor, and maybe Southerners don't like foreigners as much," Federal Appellate Judge Richard Posner said with a chuckle. "Maybe people in big cities are more used to having large [less] indigenous populations. Maybe it's different in more homogenous areas of the United States."
Posner has been the most outspoken appellate judge criticizing the decisions of federal immigration judges and he sits on the appellate court most likely to grant asylum pleas -- the Chicago-based 7th Circuit. Posner spoke this past week at a seminar by the Georgetown professors -- Philip Schrag and Andrew Schoenholtz who are compiling the book about how U.S. Courts handle asylum cases.
What they found was utter randomness -- some judges who refuse all asylum requests, others who grant almost all.
"There is a great deal of persecution in the world, but there also are a great deal of people who want to come to the United States -- they'll come here illegally and try to stay here with asylum," Posner said.
Using data they obtained through Freedom of Information requests, Schrag and Schoenholtz charted the progress of asylum cases from the hearing officers who first rule on the cases, to the immigration judges who those rulings can be appealed to, to the Board of Immigration Affairs (BIA) in Virginia to the federal appellate courts that represent the last hope for the refugees.
At the immigration judge stage, they found judges in Atlanta granted only 12 percent of asylum requests, while judges in New York granted 52 percent and judges in San Francisco granted 54 percent. Even within those jurisdictions, the rulings were all over the map, they said. One New York judge granted asylum in six percent of the cases; another New York judge granted asylum in 91 percent of cases.
Asylum-seekers with no attorney won only 16 percent of the time. Those with an attorney won 46 percent of the time.
One statistic that caught the professors by surprise: the 78 female immigration judges granted asylum in 54 percent of cases; while the 169 male judges granted it in 37 percent of cases.
Early on, the Bush administration slashed the number of judges on the Board of Immigration Affairs. It had the effect the administration wanted: The overworked judges began denying without comment a far greater percentage of asylum requests. That boosted the number of cases appealed to the federal appellate courts, prompting an outcry from Posner.
Posner has criticized the lawyers who represent the refugees, the front-line hearing officers, the translators, the immigration judges, the State Dept. documents those judges rely on in making their rulings, and the BIA members who often write no opinions to justify their rulings.
The Chicago district reverses more than 30 percent of the BIA's denials of asylum, compared to the next-highest district, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, which reverses about 20 percent of the board's rulings.
Lowering the workload of the judges would help them to take more time on each case and properly consider them, Posner said.
"The 7th Circuit doesn't have one of the heaviest workloads," Posner said, and laughed as he added, "Maybe that's why we reverse so many of the appeals."
Congressional committees have expressed interest in Schrag and Schoenholtz' work and the professors hope the new administration will use it to revamp the asylum process.
