Judge Garry D. Malphrus
FY 2002 - 2007, Arlington Immigration Court
Judge Malphrus was appointed as an Immigration Judge in March 2005. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989 (magna cum laude) and a Juris Doctorate in 1993 (Order of the Coif), both from the University of South Carolina. Prior to becoming an Immigration Judge, from 2001 to 2004, Judge Malphrus served as Associate Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. In that capacity, he assisted with the development, coordination, and implementation of administration policy on a wide variety of issues related to the U. S. Department of Justice. From 1997 to 2001, Judge Malphrus served on the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee and was chief counsel and staff director of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight and later, on the Subcommittee on the Constitution. Judge Malphrus worked as a law clerk for the Honorable Dennis W. Shedd, now of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, from 1995 to 1997, and for the Honorable William W. Wilkins, now the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, from 1994 to 1995. He was also a law clerk for the Honorable Larry R. Patterson, Circuit Judge for South Carolina, from 1993 to 1994. Judge Malphrus is a member of the South Carolina Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Malphrus decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2002 through 2007. During this period, Judge Malphrus is recorded as deciding 417 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 138, gave no conditional grants, and denied 279. Converted to percentage terms, Malphrus denied 66.9 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 33.1 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Malphrus's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period. (Rates for years with less than 25 decisions are not shown.)
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Malphrus's denial rate of 66.9 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 59.8 percent of asylum claims. In the Arlington Immigration Court where Judge Malphrus was based, judges there denied asylum 59 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Malphrus 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 Malphrus here receives a rank of 135. That is 134 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 132 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 Malphrus, 19.9% 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 Malphrus, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from Ethiopia. Individuals from this nation made up 17.8 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Malphrus were: Cameroon (8.9 %), Mauritania (5.3%), Egypt (5%), El Salvador (3.4%). 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%).
