Judge Amelia Anderson

FY 2017 - 2022, Otay Mesa Immigration Court

Published Oct 26, 2022

Attorney General Barr appointed Amelia C. Anderson to begin hearing cases in January 2020. Judge Anderson earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2005 from the University of Notre Dame and a Juris Doctor in 2009 from DePaul University College of Law. From 2010 to 2019, she served as an assistant chief counsel, Office of Chief Counsel, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in San Diego. From 2017 to 2018, she served as a special assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, in San Diego. From 2009 to 2010, she served as an attorney advisor at the San Diego Immigration Court, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice. Judge Anderson is a member of the Illinois State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Anderson were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2017 through 2022. During this period, court records show that Judge Anderson decided 104 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 49, granted 3 other types of relief, and denied relief to 52. Converted to percentage terms, Anderson denied 50.0 percent and granted 50.0 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Anderson'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 Anderson's denial rate of 50.0 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 63.8 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Otay Mesa Immigration Court where Judge Anderson decided these cases denied asylum 68.2 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Anderson'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 Anderson, 31.7% 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 Anderson came from Cuba. Individuals from this country made up 26.9% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Anderson were: Cameroon (18.3%), Mexico (13.5%), El Salvador (6.7%), Russia (4.8%). 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%).