Judge Michael W. Straus

FY 2017 - 2022, Hartford Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Judge Straus was appointed as an Immigration Judge in August 2000. Prior to this appointment, he served as counsel to the Chief Immigration Judge from March 1997 to August 2000. He received an undergraduate degree in 1982 from Carleton College, and a Juris Doctorate in 1985 from Washington University School of Law. From 1993 to March 1997, Judge Straus worked as the senior adjudications officer and acting branch chief for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Washington, DC. He also worked in the private sector as an attorney for Barst & Shusterman from 1988 to 1993. Judge Straus served as an attorney for the INS in Los Angeles, California, from 1985 to 1988. He is a member of the California Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Straus were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Straus decided 1568 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 338, granted 8 other types of relief, and denied relief to 1222. Converted to percentage terms, Straus denied 77.9 percent and granted 22.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Straus'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 Straus's denial rate of 77.9 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Hartford Immigration Court where Judge Straus decided these cases denied asylum 73.2 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Straus'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 Straus, 18.3% 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 Straus came from Guatemala. Individuals from this country made up 23.7% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Straus were: Ecuador (15.9%), Honduras (14.0%), Brazil (9.6%), El Salvador (9.6%). 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%).