Judge R. Wayne Kimball

FY 2018 - 2023, Dallas Immigration Court

Published Oct 19, 2023

Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Judge Kimball in November 2011. Judge Kimball received a bachelor of arts degree in 1983 and a master of arts degree in 1984, both from Johns Hopkins University. He received his juris doctorate in 1988 from Georgetown University Law Center. From August 2001 to November 2011, Judge Kimball served as an administrative judge for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Dallas. From April 1994 to August 2001, he served as deputy district counsel for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in New York. From 1988 to 1994, Judge Kimball was a trial attorney for INS in Dallas. From 1987 to 1988, he served as a law clerk, Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, EOIR, for the immigration courts in Phoenix and Falls Church, Va. During this time, he was the administrative editor of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. Judge Kimball is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Kimball were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2018 through 2023. During this period, court records show that Judge Kimball decided 777 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 112, granted 30 other types of relief, and denied relief to 635. Converted to percentage terms, Kimball denied 81.7 percent and granted 18.3 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Kimball'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 Kimball's denial rate of 81.7 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 60.6 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Dallas Immigration Court where Judge Kimball decided these cases denied asylum 73.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Kimball'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 Kimball, 26.5% 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 Kimball came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 35.1% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Kimball were: Honduras (21.2%), Mexico (9.9%), Guatemala (6.8%), Nigeria (3.1%). 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%).