Judge Barbara A. Nelson
FY 2013 - 2018, New York Immigration Court
Judge Nelson was appointed as an Immigration Judge in September 1995. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico in 1972, and a Juris Doctorate from the New England School of Law in 1975. From 1983 to 1995, she was in private practice in New York. Judge Nelson was also in private practice with Pollack & Kromer from 1979 to 1983, and with Antonio C. Martinez from 1977 to 1979, both of New York. She is a member of the Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York Bars.
Deciding Asylum Cases
Detailed data on Judge Nelson decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2013 through 2018. During this period, Judge Nelson is recorded as deciding 1102 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted 548, gave no conditional grants, and denied 554. Converted to percentage terms, Nelson denied 50.3 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 49.7 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Nelson's denial rate fiscal year-by-year over this recent period.
Nationwide Comparisons
Compared to Judge Nelson's denial rate of 50.3 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 57.6 percent of asylum claims. In the New York Immigration Court where Judge Nelson was based, judges there denied asylum 20.4 percent of the time. See Figure 2.
Judge Nelson can also be ranked compared to each of the 347 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 347 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 347 represented the lowest - Judge Nelson here receives a rank of 243. That is 242 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 104 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 (91%) of them are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Nelson, 4.4% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 20% 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 Nelson, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before her came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 35.5 % of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Nelson were: El Salvador (9.9 %), India (5.4%), Guatemala (4.5%), Honduras (4.2%). 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 (18.5%), El Salvador (14.7%), Mexico (12.0%), Honduras (10.9%), Guatemala (10.3%), India (3.2%), Haiti (2.1%), Nepal (1.8%), Eritrea (1.3%), Ethiopia (1.3%), Somalia (1.2%), Cameroon (1.0%), Bangladesh (1.0%).
