Judge Dana Leigh Marks

FY 2019 - 2024, San Francisco Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Judge Marks was appointed as an Immigration Judge in January 1987. She received an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, in 1977. From 1978 to 1986, she was an attorney associate/partner for Simmons & Ungar in San Francisco. From 1976 to 1978, she worked as a law clerk/associate attorney for Stiller and Nervo, also in San Francisco. Judge Marks has served as a commissioner on the State Bar of California's Board of Legal Specialization, Immigration and Nationality Law Advisory Commission since 1994. She has been an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law since 1992, and taught immigration law at various San Francisco Bay Area law schools for five years before that. Judge Marks is a member of the California Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Marks were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Marks decided 392 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 348, granted 7 other types of relief, and denied relief to 37. Converted to percentage terms, Marks denied 9.4 percent and granted 90.6 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Marks'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 Marks's denial rate of 9.4 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the San Francisco Immigration Court where Judge Marks decided these cases denied asylum 28.3 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Marks'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 (77%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Marks, 3.6% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 16.4% 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 Marks came from India. Individuals from this country made up 26.3% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Marks were: Mexico (18.9%), Guatemala (17.6%), El Salvador (13.5%), Honduras (6.4%). 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 (14.0%), Guatemala (13.2%), Honduras (12.4%), Mexico (8.2%), China (6.1%), India (5.4%), Venezuela (4.0%), Ecuador (3.7%), Nicaragua (3.5%), Colombia (2.9%), Cuba (2.6%), Brazil (2.6%), Russia (2.4%).