Judge Alison E. Daw

FY 2017 - 2022, San Francisco Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Judge Daw was appointed as an Immigration Judge in May 2006. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctorate in 1988 from Georgetown University Law Center. Judge Daw served as an assistant U.S. attorney in San Jose, California, from September 1999 to June 2005. She worked as a deputy county counsel for the County of Amador, Jackson, California, from September 1996 to September 1999. Judge Daw was in private practice from September 1988 to September 1996. She is a member of the California Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Daw were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Daw decided 188 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 138, granted 6 other types of relief, and denied relief to 44. Converted to percentage terms, Daw denied 23.4 percent and granted 76.6 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Daw'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 Daw's denial rate of 23.4 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the San Francisco Immigration Court where Judge Daw decided these cases denied asylum 32.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Daw'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 Daw, 6.9% 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 Daw came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 31.4% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Daw were: Guatemala (20.2%), Mexico (15.4%), Honduras (10.6%), India (8.5%). 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%).