Judge Themistoklis Aliferis

FY 2019 - 2024, New York - Det Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Themistoklis E. Aliferis was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in February 2023. Judge Aliferis earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1996 from Louisiana Tech University and a Juris Doctor in 2000 from Louisiana State University – Paul M. Hebert Law Center. From 2018 to 2022, he served as an assistant chief counsel with the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in Miami. From 2007 to 2018, he was a solo practitioner representing noncitizens in Miami before the immigration court and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, DHS. From 2005 to 2006, he was an associate attorney at Alipaz Abogados and later at Bolet & Terrero in La Paz, Bolivia, handling international trade transactions. From 2002 to 2005, he counseled commercial clients in Montreal, Canada. From 2001 to 2002, he practiced civil litigation at the law firm of Chopin, Wager, Cole, Richard, Reboul and Kutcher LLP in New Orleans. In 2000, he served as a judicial law clerk in the 15th Judicial District Court of Louisiana. Judge Aliferis is a member of the Florida Bar and the Louisiana State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Aliferis were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Aliferis decided 145 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 73, granted 0 other types of relief, and denied relief to 72. Converted to percentage terms, Aliferis denied 49.7 percent and granted 50.3 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Aliferis'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 Aliferis's denial rate of 49.7 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the New York - Det Immigration Court where Judge Aliferis decided these cases denied asylum 57.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Aliferis'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 Aliferis, 24.8% 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 Aliferis came from . Individuals from this country made up . of his caseload. 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%).