Judge Susan Phan

FY 2017 - 2022, San Francisco Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General William Barr appointed Susan Phan to begin hearing cases in May 2019.Judge Phan earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2001 and a Juris Doctor in 2004, both from theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. From 2015 to 2019, she served as an assistant chiefcounsel for the Office of the Chief Counsel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Departmentof Homeland Security, in San Francisco, California. From 2012 to 2015, she served as anassistant general counsel for the State Bar of California, in San Francisco. From 2009 to 2014,she served as a special assistant U.S. attorney and assistant U.S. attorney for the NorthernDistrict of California in San Francisco, and for the Eastern District of California in Fresno. From2005 to 2009, she served as an assistant attorney general with the District of Columbia AttorneyGeneral’s Office in Washington, D.C. Judge Phan is a member of the California State Bar andDistrict of Columbia Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Phan were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Phan decided 1234 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 566, granted 12 other types of relief, and denied relief to 656. Converted to percentage terms, Phan denied 53.2 percent and granted 46.9 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Phan'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 Phan's denial rate of 53.2 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 Phan decided these cases denied asylum 32.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Phan'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 Phan, 13.6% 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 Phan came from Guatemala. Individuals from this country made up 28.7% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Phan were: El Salvador (19.4%), Mexico (19.2%), Honduras (13.8%), India (5.5%). 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%).