Judge Carlos E. Maury

FY 2019 - 2024, Van Nuys Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Judge Maury to begin hearing cases in June 2015.Judge Maury received a bachelor of arts degree in 1989 from the City College of the CityUniversity of New York and a juris doctorate in 1992 from the University of Miami School ofLaw. From June 2002 to May 2015, Judge Maury served at the U.S. Immigration and CustomsEnforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in various capacities including deputy chiefcounsel and assistant chief counsel, in Los Angeles. From 2000 to 2002, he served as assistantdistrict counsel for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, in Miami. From 1993 to2000, he served as an assistant public defender for the Eleventh Judicial District of Florida.Judge Maury is a member of the Florida Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Maury were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Maury decided 543 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 402, granted 21 other types of relief, and denied relief to 120. Converted to percentage terms, Maury denied 22.1 percent and granted 77.9 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Maury'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 Maury's denial rate of 22.1 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Van Nuys Immigration Court where Judge Maury decided these cases denied asylum 41.9 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Maury'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 Maury, 5% 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 Maury came from Russia. Individuals from this country made up 19.0% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Maury were: Armenia (17.7%), El Salvador (11.4%), Mexico (9.4%), India (7.0%). 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%).