Judge David Ayala
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Ayala was appointed as an Immigration Judge in September 1993. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Pan American University in 1978, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston in 1980. Judge Ayala worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas in Harlingen from 1988 to 1993. He served as a district counsel for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1986 to 1988, and a trial attorney from 1983 to 1986, also in Harlingen. Judge Ayala was in private practice in Pharr, Texas, from 1981 to 1983. From 1975 to 1978, Judge Ayala served as a border patrol agent with INS in McAllen, Texas. He also worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety as a state trooper in Alice, Texas, from 1969 to 1975. Judge Ayala is a member of the Texas Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Ayala decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Ayala is recorded as deciding 242 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 105, gave 1 conditional grants, and denied 136. Converted to percentage terms, Ayala denied 56.2 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 43.8 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Ayala'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 Ayala's denial rate of 56.2 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the San Francisco Immigration Court where Judge Ayala was usually based, judges there denied asylum 51.9 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Ayala 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 Ayala receives a rank of 163. That is 162 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 75 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 Ayala, 9.1% 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 Ayala, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 14 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Ayala were: India (10.3 %), Honduras (7.4%), Colombia (6.6%), Armenia (6.2%). 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%).
