Judge Miriam R. Hayward

FY 2018 - 2023, San Francisco Immigration Court

Published Oct 19, 2023

Judge Hayward was appointed as an Immigration Judge in March 1997. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate from University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law, in 1980. From 1981 to 1982, Judge Hayward worked as an associate attorney with the Law Office of Marc Van Der Hout in San Francisco. She worked as a supervising attorney at the International Institute of the East Bay in Oakland, California, from 1982 to 1997. Judge Hayward has also served as a lecturer/refugee law clinic supervisor at the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1995, and as a lecturer/immigration law clinic supervisor at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law from 1993 to 1996. She is a member of the California Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Hayward were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2018 through 2023. During this period, court records show that Judge Hayward decided 183 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 174, granted 0 other types of relief, and denied relief to 9. Converted to percentage terms, Hayward denied 4.9 percent and granted 95.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Hayward'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 Hayward's denial rate of 4.9 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 60.6 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the San Francisco Immigration Court where Judge Hayward decided these cases denied asylum 29.2 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Hayward'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 (80%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Hayward, 7.1% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 15.7% 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 Hayward came from India. Individuals from this country made up 29.0% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Hayward were: El Salvador (14.8%), Guatemala (11.5%), Mexico (10.9%), China (8.7%). 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 (16.6%), Guatemala (15.1%), Honduras (13.8%), Mexico (9.2%), China (6.8%), India (5.1%), Venezuela (3.2%), Ecuador (3.1%), Cuba (2.4%), Nicaragua (2.3%), Brazil (2.0%), Colombia (1.4%), Cameroon (1.4%).