Judge Hye Y. Chon

FY 2019 - 2024, Los Angeles - Wla Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Hye Y. Chon to begin hearing cases in October 2018.Judge Chon earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1995 from the University of California, Los Angeles,and a Juris Doctor in 1999 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in SanFrancisco. From 2006 to 2018, she was an assistant chief counsel with Immigration and CustomsEnforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Los Angeles. From 2011 to 2012, she servedas a special assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District ofCalifornia in Los Angeles. From 2002 to 2006, she was an attorney with the California SupremeCourt in San Francisco. From 1999 to 2002, she was a deputy attorney general with theCalifornia Office of the Attorney General in Los Angeles. Judge Chon is a member of the StateBar of California.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Chon were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Chon decided 1104 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 220, granted 10 other types of relief, and denied relief to 874. Converted to percentage terms, Chon denied 79.2 percent and granted 20.8 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Chon'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 Chon's denial rate of 79.2 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Los Angeles - Wla Immigration Court where Judge Chon decided these cases denied asylum 63.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Chon'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 Chon, 7.4% 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 Chon came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 43.0% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Chon were: Guatemala (15.1%), Mexico (11.5%), China (7.9%), Honduras (7.6%). 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%).