Judge Lucy Baez

FY 2019 - 2024, Sterling Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Lucy Baez was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in October 2022. Judge Baez earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2003 from Fordham University and a Juris Doctor in 2007 from Fordham University Law School. From 2021 to 2022, she served as a supervisory attorney advisor with the Board of Immigration Appeals, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice in Falls Church, Virginia. From 2019 to 2021, she served as a supervisory immigration services officer with the External Affairs Directorate with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security in New York. From 2016 to 2019, she served as an asylum officer and supervisory asylum officer with the Refugee Asylum and International Operations Directorate with USCIS in Lyndhurst, New Jersey and Bethpage, New York, respectively. From 2012 to 2016, she was first a staff attorney and then a supervising staff attorney for Church World Service in New York. From 2011 to 2012, she was an attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group. From 2009 to 2011, she was the staff attorney for Central American Refugee Center in Hempstead, New York. Judge Baez is a member of the New York State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Baez were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Baez decided 156 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 78, granted 3 other types of relief, and denied relief to 75. Converted to percentage terms, Baez denied 48.1 percent and granted 51.9 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Baez'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 Baez's denial rate of 48.1 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 Baez decided these cases denied asylum 44.5 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Baez'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 Baez, 3.8% 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 Baez came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 25.0% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Baez were: Honduras (19.2%), Peru (11.5%), Venezuela (9.0%), Nicaragua (8.3%). 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%).