Judge D. D. Sitgraves
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Sitgraves was appointed as an Immigration Judge in October 1994. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Hampton University in 1979, and a Juris Doctorate from Texas Southern University in 1982. From 1989 to 1994, she was a trial attorney with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in El Paso, Texas. From 1983 to 1989, she worked as an assistant district attorney for the El Paso District Attorney. Judge Sitgraves is a member of the Texas Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Sitgraves decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Sitgraves is recorded as deciding 195 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted 54, gave no conditional grants, and denied 141. Converted to percentage terms, Sitgraves denied 72.3 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 27.7 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Sitgraves's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period. (Rates for years with less than 25 decisions are not shown.)
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Sitgraves's denial rate of 72.3 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the San Pedro Immigration Court where Judge Sitgraves was usually based, judges there denied asylum 60.7 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Sitgraves 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 Sitgraves receives a rank of 97. That is 96 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 141 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 Sitgraves, 47.2% 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 Sitgraves, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before her came from Mexico. Individuals from this nation made up 20 % of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Sitgraves were: El Salvador (17.9 %), China (13.8%), Armenia (12.8%), Guatemala (6.7%). 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%).
