Judge Julia E. Egy

FY 2019 - 2024, Sterling Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Julia E. Egy was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in August 2022. Judge Egy earned a Bachelor of Journalism in 1997 from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Juris Doctor in 2002 from American University Washington College of Law. From 2014 to 2022, she served as a senior panel attorney with the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), Executive Office for Immigration Review. From 2012 to 2014, she served as a supervisory attorney, and from 2004 to 2012, as an attorney advisor, with the BIA. From 2003 to 2004, she was in private practice. From 2002 to 2003, she served as a judicial law clerk for the Baltimore, Philadelphia, and York immigration courts. Judge Egy is a member of the Missouri Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Egy were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Egy decided 148 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 74, granted 3 other types of relief, and denied relief to 71. Converted to percentage terms, Egy denied 48.0 percent and granted 52.0 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Egy'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 Egy's denial rate of 48.0 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Sterling Immigration Court where Judge Egy decided these cases denied asylum 44.5 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Egy'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 Egy, 3.4% 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 Egy came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 49.3% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Egy were: Honduras (18.9%), Guatemala (5.4%), Peru (4.7%), Afghanistan (3.4%). 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%).