Judge Shira M. Levine

FY 2019 - 2024, San Francisco Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Shira M. Levine was appointed an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in October 2021.Judge Levine earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2005 from the University of Michigan and a JurisDoctorate in 2012 from Stanford Law School. From 2019 to 2021, she worked as Staff Attorneyat Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, in Oakland, California. From 2015 to 2018, she workedas Staff Attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza, in Oakland. From 2013 to 2014, she was a StanfordPublic Interest Law Fellow with Legal Aid at Work, in San Francisco. From 2012 to 2013, sheclerked for the Honorable Harry Pregerson of the United States Court of Appeals for the NinthCircuit. Judge Levine is a member of the State Bar of California.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Levine were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Levine decided 920 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 897, granted 4 other types of relief, and denied relief to 19. Converted to percentage terms, Levine denied 2.1 percent and granted 97.9 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Levine'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 Levine's denial rate of 2.1 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 Levine decided these cases denied asylum 28.3 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Levine'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 Levine, 4.2% 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 Levine came from India. Individuals from this country made up 23.6% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Levine were: Guatemala (20.8%), El Salvador (17.1%), Mexico (13.3%), Honduras (4.1%). 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%).