Judge Virginia Perez-Guzman

FY 2017 - 2022, Dallas Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Judge Perez-Guzman in December 2010. Judge Perez-Guzman received a bachelor of arts degree in 1993 from Florida International University and a juris doctorate in 1997 from University of Miami School of Law. From 2009 to December 2010, she was in private practice in Miami. From 2002 to 2009, she worked for the Church World Service as director of the Miami Office, Immigration and Refugee Program. From 2000 to 2002, Judge Perez-Guzman worked as a program administrator for the Department of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women. From 1997 to 2000, she was director and founder of Lucha: A Women's Legal Program at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. Judge Perez-Guzman is a member of the Florida Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Perez-Guzman were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Perez-Guzman decided 377 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 130, granted 31 other types of relief, and denied relief to 216. Converted to percentage terms, Perez-Guzman denied 57.3 percent and granted 42.7 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Perez-Guzman'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 Perez-Guzman's denial rate of 57.3 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 Perez-Guzman decided these cases denied asylum 76.4 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Perez-Guzman'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 Perez-Guzman, 36.6% 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 Perez-Guzman came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 30.2% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Perez-Guzman were: Honduras (17.5%), Guatemala (7.4%), Cuba (5.8%), Cameroon (5.3%). 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%).