Judge Olivia L. Cassin

FY 2017 - 2022, New York Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General Loretta Lynch appointed Judge Cassin to begin hearing cases in June 2015.Judge Cassin received a bachelor of arts degree in 1983 from Connecticut College and a jurisdoctorate in 1988 from Brooklyn Law School. From March 1992 to May 2015, Judge Cassinserved as an attorney in the Immigration Law Unit of The Legal Aid Society, in New York.From 1988 to1991, Judge Cassin was in private practice as an associate at Stroock & Stroock &Lavan, in New York. From 2011 to present, Judge Cassin has served as a member of the NewYork State Bar Association’s Committee on Immigration Representation. Judge Cassin is amember of the District of Columbia and New York State Bars.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Cassin were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Cassin decided 1077 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 906, granted 45 other types of relief, and denied relief to 126. Converted to percentage terms, Cassin denied 11.7 percent and granted 88.3 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Cassin'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 Cassin's denial rate of 11.7 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the New York Immigration Court where Judge Cassin decided these cases denied asylum 34 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Cassin'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 Cassin, 1.2% 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 Cassin came from China. Individuals from this country made up 42.4% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Cassin were: India (8.7%), Nepal (8.2%), El Salvador (6.2%), Bangladesh (4.9%). 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%).