Judge Lincoln S. Jalelian

FY 2017 - 2022, Boston Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General William Barr appointed Lincoln S. Jalelian to begin hearing cases in May2019. Judge Jalelian earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1989 from Tufts University and a Juris Doctorin 1992 from Boston University School of Law. From 2009 to 2019, he served as an assistantchief counsel, Office of the Chief Counsel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Departmentof Homeland Security, in Boston, Massachusetts. From 2008 to 2009, he served as an assistantattorney general in the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts. From 2004 to 2008, heserved as a trial attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, Criminal Division,Department of Justice. From 2002 to 2003, he served as a U.S. resident legal advisor at the U.S.Office (later U.S. Embassy) in Pristina, Kosovo. From 1992 to 2004, he served an assistantdistrict attorney in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office in Cambridge,Massachusetts. In 2001, he was in private practice. Judge Jalelian is a member of theMassachusetts State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Jalelian were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Jalelian decided 229 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 89, granted 5 other types of relief, and denied relief to 135. Converted to percentage terms, Jalelian denied 59.0 percent and granted 41.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Jalelian'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 Jalelian's denial rate of 59.0 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Boston Immigration Court where Judge Jalelian decided these cases denied asylum 45.5 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Jalelian'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 Jalelian, 1.3% 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 Jalelian came from Guatemala. Individuals from this country made up 24.5% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Jalelian were: El Salvador (20.5%), Honduras (7.4%), Brazil (5.7%), Colombia (3.9%). 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%).