Judge Carlos Cuevas
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Cuevas was appointed as an Immigration Judge in February 1994. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePaul University in 1979, and a Juris Doctorate from DePaul University, College of Law, in 1982. From 1989 to 1994, Judge Cuevas served as an administrative law judge with the Illinois Human Rights Commission in Chicago. From 1986 to 1989, he was in private practice in Chicago. Judge Cuevas served as an attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago from 1982 to 1986. He is a member of the Illinois Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Cuevas decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Cuevas is recorded as deciding 756 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 353, gave 6 conditional grants, and denied 397. Converted to percentage terms, Cuevas denied 52.5 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 47.5 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Cuevas's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Cuevas's denial rate of 52.5 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the Chicago Immigration Court where Judge Cuevas was usually based, judges there denied asylum 63.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Cuevas can also be ranked compared to each of the 238 individual immigration judges serving during this period who rendered at least one hundred decisions. If judges were ranked from 1 to 238 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 238 represented the lowest - Judge Cuevas receives a rank of 175. That is 174 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 63 denied asylum at the same rate or less often.
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 (87%) of them are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Cuevas, 8.2% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 8.2% 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 Cuevas, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from Guatemala. Individuals from this nation made up 17.1 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Cuevas were: China (9.9 %), Albania (6.7%), Colombia (4.6%), Iraq (4.4%). 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 (22.3%), Colombia (10.2%), Haiti (9.9%), Albania (3.9%), Indonesia (3.8%), India (3.5%), Guatemala (3.1%), El Salvador (2.1%), Armenia (2.1%), Mexico (1.7%), Russia (1.6%), Ethiopia (1.6%), Pakistan (1.5%), and Cameroon (1.4%).
