Judge Denise A. Marks Lane

FY 2018 - 2023, Miami Immigration Court

Published Oct 19, 2023

Judge Lane was appointed as an Immigration Judge in September 1994. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University in 1983, and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center in 1986. From 1989 to 1994, Judge Lane served as a staff attorney with the Board of Immigration Appeals, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), in Falls Church, Virginia, before being appointed as an Immigration Judge. From 1987 to 1989, she worked as a trial attorney for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in New York. Judge Lane also served as a judicial law clerk, Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, EOIR, from 1986 to 1987. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Marks Lane were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2018 through 2023. During this period, court records show that Judge Marks Lane decided 524 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 49, granted 9 other types of relief, and denied relief to 466. Converted to percentage terms, Marks Lane denied 88.9 percent and granted 11.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Marks Lane's denial rate each fiscal year over this recent period. (Rates for years with less than 25 decisions are not shown.)

Nationwide Comparisons

Compared to Judge Marks Lane's denial rate of 88.9 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 60.6 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Miami Immigration Court where Judge Marks Lane decided these cases denied asylum 85.3 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Marks Lane's asylum grant and denial rates are compared with other judges serving on the same court in this table. Note that when an Immigration Judge serves on more than one court during the same period, separate Immigration Judge reports are created for any Court in which the judge rendered at least 100 asylum decisions.

Why Do Denial Rates Vary Among Judges?

Although denial rates are shaped by each Judge's judicial philosophy, denial rates are also shaped by other factors, such as the types of cases on the Judge's docket, the detained status of immigrant respondents, current immigration policies, and other factors beyond an individual Judge's control. For example, TRAC has previously found that legal representation and the nationality of the asylum seeker are just two factors that appear to impact asylum decision outcomes.

The composition of cases may differ significantly between Immigration Courts in the country. Within a single Court when cases are randomly assigned to judges sitting on that Court, each Judge should have roughly a similar composition of cases given a sufficient number of asylum cases. Then variations in asylum decisions among Judges on the same Immigration Court would appear to reflect, at least in part, the judicial philosophy that the Judge brings to the bench. However, if judges within a Court are assigned to specialized dockets or hearing locations, then case compositions are likely to continue to differ and can contribute to differences in asylum denial rates.

Representation

When asylum seekers are not represented by an attorney, almost all of them (80%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Marks Lane, 8.2% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 15.7% 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.

The largest group of asylum seekers appearing before Judge Marks Lane came from Guatemala. Individuals from this country made up 32.6% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Marks Lane were: Honduras (30.5%), Venezuela (9.2%), El Salvador (7.1%), Nicaragua (5.5%). See Figure 4.

In the nation as a whole during this same period, major nationalities of asylum seekers, in descending order of frequency, were El Salvador (16.6%), Guatemala (15.1%), Honduras (13.8%), Mexico (9.2%), China (6.8%), India (5.1%), Venezuela (3.2%), Ecuador (3.1%), Cuba (2.4%), Nicaragua (2.3%), Brazil (2.0%), Colombia (1.4%), Cameroon (1.4%).