Judge Paul A. Defonzo
FY 2001 - 2006
Judge Defonzo was appointed as an Immigration Judge in March 1997. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978 from Fordham University, and a Juris Doctorate in 1981 from Brooklyn Law School. Judge Defonzo was in private practice in Brooklyn, New York, from 1996 to 1997. From 1982 to 1995, he worked as an associate attorney with Blecher, Mendel and Fedele. Judge Defonzo is a member of the New York Bar.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Defonzo decisions are available for the period covering fiscal years 2001 through 2006. During this period, Judge Defonzo is recorded as deciding 1436 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 509, gave 61 conditional grants, and denied 866. Converted to percentage terms, Defonzo denied 60.3 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 39.7 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Defonzo's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Defonzo's denial rate of 60.3 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 60.8 percent of asylum claims. In the New York Immigration Court where Judge Defonzo was usually based, judges there denied asylum 42.7 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Defonzo 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 Defonzo receives a rank of 151. That is 150 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 87 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 Defonzo, 2.1% 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 Defonzo, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 54 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Defonzo were: Albania (7.4 %), Yugoslavia (3.1%), Russia (2.9%), Guinea (2.4%). 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%).
