Judge Joseph S. Imburgia

FY 2017 - 2022, Phoenix Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General William Barr appointed Joseph S. Imburgia to begin hearing cases in October2019. Judge Imburgia earned a Bachelor of Science in 1994 from the U.S. Air Force Academy, aJuris Doctor in 2002 from University of Tennessee College of Law, and a Master of Laws in2009 from the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. In 2019, he retired as acolonel from the U.S. Air Force, having last served as the Chief Circuit Military Judge for thePacific Circuit. From 2002 to 2019, he served as an attorney and a military judge with the U.S.Air Force in the following locations: Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri; the U.S. Air ForceAcademy, Colorado; Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico; the U.S. Embassy, Canberra,Australia; Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; Travis Air Force Base, California; and KadenaAir Base, Japan. He also served two years as an exchange legal officer with the AustralianDefense Force. Judge Imburgia is a member of the Tennessee State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Imburgia were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Imburgia decided 117 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 16, granted 3 other types of relief, and denied relief to 98. Converted to percentage terms, Imburgia denied 83.8 percent and granted 16.3 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Imburgia'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 Imburgia's denial rate of 83.8 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Phoenix Immigration Court where Judge Imburgia decided these cases denied asylum 77.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Imburgia'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 Imburgia, 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 Imburgia came from Mexico. Individuals from this country made up 34.2% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Imburgia were: Guatemala (23.9%), Romania (11.1%), El Salvador (8.5%), Honduras (4.3%). 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%).