Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl
FY 2002 - 2007, Newark Immigration Court
Judge Riefkohl was appointed as an Immigration Judge in March 1995. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, and a Juris Doctorate in 1974, both from the University of Puerto Rico. From 1994 to 1995, he worked as a partner in the law firm Riefkohl & Riefkohl, and from 1979 to 1994, he was a partner with Lebenkoff & Coven, both in New York. From 1975 to 1979, he served as a general attorney in the Litigation Division for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, also in New York. Judge Riefkohl served in the U.S. Air Force (National Guard) from 1968 to 1974. He is a member of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Riefkohl decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2002 through 2007. During this period, Judge Riefkohl is recorded as deciding 977 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 549, gave 15 conditional grants, and denied 413. Converted to percentage terms, Riefkohl denied 42.3 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 57.7 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Riefkohl's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Riefkohl's denial rate of 42.3 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 59.8 percent of asylum claims. In the Newark Immigration Court where Judge Riefkohl was based, judges there denied asylum 62.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Riefkohl can also be ranked compared to each of the 267 individual immigration judges serving during this period who rendered at least one hundred decisions in a city's immigration court. If judges were ranked from 1 to 267 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 267 represented the lowest - Judge Riefkohl here receives a rank of 225. That is 224 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 42 denied asylum at the same rate or less often. Ranks are tallied separately for each immigration court. Should a judge serve on more than one court during this period, separate ranks would be assigned in any court that the judge rendered at least 100 asylum decisions in.
Why Do Denial Rates Vary Among Judges?
Denial rates reflect in part the differing composition of cases assigned to different immigration judges. For example, being represented in court and the nationality of the asylum seeker appear to often impact decision outcome. Decisions also appear to reflect in part the personal perspective that the judge brings to the bench.
Representation
If an asylum seeker is not represented by an attorney, almost all (86%) of them are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Riefkohl, 3.8% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 7.7% of asylum seekers are not represented.
Nationality
Asylum seekers are a diverse group. Over one hundred different nationalities had at least one hundred individuals claiming asylum decided during this period. As might be expected, immigration courts located in different parts of the country tend to have proportionately larger shares from some countries than from others. And, given the required legal grounds for a successful asylum claim, asylum seekers from some nations tend to be more successful than others.
For Judge Riefkohl, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 25.8 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Riefkohl were: Colombia (7.7 %), Indonesia (6.7%), Albania (5.8%), Egypt (5.3%). See Figure 4.
In the nation as a whole during this same period, major nationalities of asylum seekers, in descending order of frequency, were China (21.3%), Colombia (10.5%), Haiti (9.8%), Indonesia (4.0%), Albania (3.7%), Guatemala (3.3%), India (3.3%), El Salvador (2.7%), Armenia (2.0%), Ethiopia (1.6%), Mexico (1.6%), Russia (1.5%), and Venezuela (1.5%).
