Judge Donald W. Thompson

FY 2016 - 2021, New York Immigration Court

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Donald W. Thompson to begin hearing cases in April 2017. Judge Thompson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2003 from the College of New Jersey and a Juris Doctor in 2006 from the Seton Hall University School of Law. From September 2007 to April 2017, he served as an assistant chief counsel for the Office of Chief Counsel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in San Francisco and New York, N.Y. From 2006 to 2007, he clerked for the Honorable Estela De La Cruz of the New Jersey Superior Court. Judge Thompson is a member of the New York and New Jersey State Bars.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on Judge Thompson decisions were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2016 through 2021. During this period, Judge Thompson is recorded as deciding 1059 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted 742, gave no conditional grants, and denied 317. Converted to percentage terms, Thompson denied 29.9 percent and granted (including conditional grants) 70.1 percent. Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Thompson'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 Thompson's denial rate of 29.9 percent, nationally during this same period, immigration court judges denied 67.6 percent of asylum claims. In the New York Immigration Court where Judge Thompson was based, judges there denied asylum 34.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Thompson 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 Thompson here receives a rank of 502. That is 501 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 56 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 Thompson, 2.4% 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.

For Judge Thompson, the largest group of asylum seekers appearing before him came from China. Individuals from this nation made up 40.8 % of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Thompson were: India (11 %), El Salvador (9.2%), Bangladesh (5.4%), Nepal (5.4%). See Figure 4.

In the nation as a whole during this same period, major nationalities of asylum seekers, in descending order of frequency, were 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%).