Amit Chugh

Judge Amit Chugh

FY 2016 - 2021, New York Immigration Court

Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Judge Chugh to begin hearing cases in June 2015.Judge Chugh received a bachelor of arts degree and bachelor of science degree in 1999 fromMichigan State University and a juris doctorate in 2002 from the American UniversityWashington College of Law. From October 2004 to May 2015, Judge Chugh served as attorneyadvisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, Executive Office for Immigration Review, in FallsChurch, Va. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a judicial law clerk entering on duty through theAttorney General’s Honors Program. Judge Chugh is a member of the New Jersey and NewYork State Bars.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Figure 1: Percent of Asylum Matters Denied

Detailed data on Judge Chugh decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2016 through 2021. During this period, Judge Chugh is recorded as deciding 192 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 51, gave no conditional grants, and denied 141. Converted to percentage terms, Chugh denied 73.4 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 26.6 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Chugh'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 Chugh's denial rate of 73.4 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 67.6 percent of asylum claims. In the New York Immigration Court where Judge Chugh was based, judges there denied asylum 34.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: Comparing Denial Rates (percents)

Judge Chugh can also be ranked compared to each of the 558 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 558 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 558 represented the lowest - Judge Chugh here receives a rank of 319. That is 318 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 239 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.

Figure 3: Asylum Seeker Had Representation

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 Chugh, 10.4% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 18.3% 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.

Figure 4: Asylum Decisions by Nationality

For Judge Chugh, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from Honduras. Individuals from this nation made up 31.8 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Chugh were: Guatemala (27.1 %), El Salvador (19.8%), Uzebekistan (4.7%), China (3.1%). See Figure 4.

In the nation as a whole during this same period, major nationalities of asylum seekers, in descending order of frequency, were El Salvador (18.7%), Guatemala (16.0%), Honduras (15.0%), Mexico (11.8%), China (8.4%), India (3.8%), Cuba (2.7%), Haiti (1.8%), Venezuela (1.6%), Cameroon (1.5%), Nicaragua (1.2%), Nepal (1.2%), Ecuador (1.1%).