Judge James R. Fujimoto
Judge Fujimoto was appointed as an Immigration Judge in June 1990. He received an undergraduate degree in 1976 from the University of Chicago, and a Juris Doctorate from DePaul University in 1979. Judge Fujimoto was a partner in the law firm of Alexander, Fennerty & Fujimoto in Chicago from 1981 to 1990. From 1978 to 1981, he served as a law clerk and then associate attorney for Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell, also in Chicago. Judge Fujimoto is a member of the Illinois Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Fujimoto decisions are available for the period covering fiscal year 2000 through the early months of 2005. During this period, Judge Fujimoto is recorded as deciding 736 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 222, gave 9 conditional grants, and denied 505. Converted to percentage terms, Fujimoto denied 68.6 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 31.4 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Fujimoto 's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Fujimoto 's denial rate of 68.6, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 61.9 percent of asylum claims. In the Chicago Immigration Court where Judge Fujimoto was usually based, judges there denied asylum 64 % of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Fujimoto can also be ranked compared to each of the 224 individual immigration judges serving during this period who rendered at least one hundred decisions. If judges were ranked from 1 to 224 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 224 represented the lowest - Judge Fujimoto receives a rank of 110. That is 109 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 114 denied asylum the 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 (93%) of them are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Fujimoto , 7.7 % were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 9.2 % 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 Fujimoto , the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from Guatemala . Individuals from this nation made up 16 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Fujimoto were: Romania (7.5 %), Yugoslavia (6.4%), Bulgaria (5.4%), Ukraine (5.3%). 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%), Haiti (9.3%), Colombia (9.1%), Albania (4.0%), India (3.9%), Guatemala (3.4%), Indonesia (3.0%), El Salvador (2.4%), Armenia (2.1%), Mexico (1.9%), and Russia (1.9%).
