Judge Deitrich H. Sims

FY 2017 - 2022, Dallas Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Judge Sims was appointed as an Immigration Judge in March 1997. Prior to his May 1999 transfer to the Immigration Court in Dallas, Judge Sims served as an Immigration Judge in the Immigration Court in Miami, Florida. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1979 from Claremont McKenna College, and a Juris Doctorate from Lewis and Clark Law School in 1982. From 1988 to 1997, Judge Sims served as an assistant district counsel with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Antonio, Texas. During this time, he also served as a special assistant U.S. Attorney with the Western District of Texas from 1994 to 1997. Judge Sims worked as a special agent with the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, in Los Angeles, California, from 1984 to 1988. He is a member of both the Texas and Washington State Bars.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Sims were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Sims decided 358 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 15, granted 10 other types of relief, and denied relief to 333. Converted to percentage terms, Sims denied 93.0 percent and granted 7.0 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Sims's denial rate each fiscal year over this recent period. (Rates for years with less than 25 decisions are not shown.)

Nationwide Comparisons

Compared to Judge Sims's denial rate of 93.0 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Dallas Immigration Court where Judge Sims decided these cases denied asylum 76.4 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Sims's asylum grant and denial rates are compared with other judges serving on the same court in this table. Note that when an Immigration Judge serves on more than one court during the same period, separate Immigration Judge reports are created for any Court in which the judge rendered at least 100 asylum decisions.

Why Do Denial Rates Vary Among Judges?

Although denial rates are shaped by each Judge's judicial philosophy, denial rates are also shaped by other factors, such as the types of cases on the Judge's docket, the detained status of immigrant respondents, current immigration policies, and other factors beyond an individual Judge's control. For example, TRAC has previously found that legal representation and the nationality of the asylum seeker are just two factors that appear to impact asylum decision outcomes.

The composition of cases may differ significantly between Immigration Courts in the country. Within a single Court when cases are randomly assigned to judges sitting on that Court, each Judge should have roughly a similar composition of cases given a sufficient number of asylum cases. Then variations in asylum decisions among Judges on the same Immigration Court would appear to reflect, at least in part, the judicial philosophy that the Judge brings to the bench. However, if judges within a Court are assigned to specialized dockets or hearing locations, then case compositions are likely to continue to differ and can contribute to differences in asylum denial rates.

Representation

When asylum seekers are not represented by an attorney, almost all of them (83%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Sims, 36.9% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 16.7% 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.

The largest group of asylum seekers appearing before Judge Sims came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 25.7% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Sims were: Honduras (18.7%), India (8.9%), Mexico (8.4%), Guatemala (6.1%). 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 (18.2%), Guatemala (16.0%), Honduras (14.6%), Mexico (10.5%), China (7.5%), India (4.5%), Cuba (2.5%), Venezuela (2.1%), Ecuador (2.1%), Nicaragua (1.9%), Haiti (1.7%), Cameroon (1.5%), Nepal (1.2%).