Judge Donn L. Livingston
FY 2005 - 2010, Denver Immigration Court
Judge Livingston was appointed as an Immigration Judge in February 1995. Prior to his transfer to the Immigration Court in Denver in February 2000, he served as an Immigration Judge at the Immigration Court in New York from January 1999 to February 2000. Judge Livingston also served as an Immigration Judge at the Queens Wackenhut Immigration Court from February 1995 to January 1999. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Juris Doctorate from New York Law School in 1978. From 1993 to 1995, Judge Livingston served as a general attorney for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in New York. From 1983 to 1993, he was a partner with the firm Massaro and Livingston, also in New York. Judge Livingston is a member of both the New York and Colorado Bars.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Livingston decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2005 through 2010. During this period, Judge Livingston is recorded as deciding 640 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 250, gave no conditional grants, and denied 389. Converted to percentage terms, Livingston denied 60.8 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 39.2 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Livingston's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Livingston's denial rate of 60.8 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 55.4 percent of asylum claims. In the Denver Immigration Court where Judge Livingston was based, judges there denied asylum 64.4 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Livingston can also be ranked compared to each of the 253 individual immigration judges serving during this period who rendered at least one hundred decisions in a city's immigration court. If judges were ranked from 1 to 253 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 253 represented the lowest - Judge Livingston here receives a rank of 134. That is 133 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 119 denied asylum at the same rate or less often. Ranks are tallied separately for each immigration court. Should a judge serve on more than one court during this period, separate ranks would be assigned in any court that the judge rendered at least 100 asylum decisions in.
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 (88%) of them are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Livingston, 15% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 11% 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 Livingston, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from Indonesia. Individuals from this nation made up 20.5 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Livingston were: Guatemala (9.2 %), Nepal (6.9%), El Salvador (6.4%), China (5.9%). 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 (21.7%), Haiti (9.9%), Colombia (7.1%), El Salvador (5.1%), Guatemala (4.8%), Indonesia (3.6%), India (2.6%), Venezuela (2.5%), Albania (2.5%), Ethiopia (1.9%), Honduras (1.8%), Guinea (1.6%), Mexico (1.5%).
