Judge Craig M. Zerbe
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Zerbe was appointed as an Immigration Judge in August 1985. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree. from La Salle College in 1970, and a Juris Doctorate from Temple University Law School in 1975. From 1980 to 1985, Judge Zerbe served as general attorney in the Litigation Division at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in Chicago. From 1970 to 1972, he served in the U.S. Army. Judge Zerbe is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Zerbe decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Zerbe is recorded as deciding 850 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 357, gave 6 conditional grants, and denied 487. Converted to percentage terms, Zerbe denied 57.3 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 42.7 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Zerbe's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Zerbe's denial rate of 57.3 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the Chicago Immigration Court where Judge Zerbe was usually based, judges there denied asylum 63.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Zerbe 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 Zerbe receives a rank of 161. That is 160 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 77 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 Zerbe, 3.4% 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 Zerbe, 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 Zerbe were: Albania (8.6 %), Guatemala (6.6%), Colombia (4.7%), Yugoslavia (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%).
