Judge Robert D. Vinikoor
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Vinikoor was appointed as an Immigration Judge in January 1984. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Delaware in 1971, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore in 1976. From 1982 to 1984, he was a special assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago. He also served as trial attorney in Chicago, and general attorney in Miami, Florida, with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1976 to 1982. Judge Vinikoor also serves as an adjunct professor at Loyola University School of Law. Judge Vinikoor is a member of the Maryland, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois Bars.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Vinikoor decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Vinikoor is recorded as deciding 1125 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 280, gave 6 conditional grants, and denied 839. Converted to percentage terms, Vinikoor denied 74.6 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 25.4 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Vinikoor's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Vinikoor's denial rate of 74.6 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the Chicago Immigration Court where Judge Vinikoor was usually based, judges there denied asylum 63.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Vinikoor 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 Vinikoor receives a rank of 87. That is 86 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 151 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 Vinikoor, 20.8% 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 Vinikoor, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 13.2 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Vinikoor were: Guatemala (11 %), Albania (6.8%), Pakistan (4.4%), Colombia (3.9%). 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%).
