Judge Kyra S. Lilien

FY 2019 - 2024, Concord Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Kyra S. Lilien was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in August 2023. Judge Lilien earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1996 from Smith College and a Juris Doctor in 2006 from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. From 2021 to 2023, she was the director of immigration legal services at Jewish Family & Community Services – East Bay in Concord, California. From 2016 to 2021, she served as staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. From 2013 to 2016, she served as asylum officer and interim training officer at the San Francisco Asylum Office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security. From 2010 to 2013, she was the immigration program director at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland, California, where she represented noncitizens before EOIR and USCIS. From 2007 to 2010, she was an associate attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in San Francisco, where she handled immigration cases on a pro bono basis. From 2006 to 2007, she was a research fellow on behalf of the University of California, Berkeley, War Crimes Studies Center at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Judge Lilien is a member of the State Bar of California.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Lilien were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Lilien decided 130 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 99, granted 1 other types of relief, and denied relief to 30. Converted to percentage terms, Lilien denied 23.1 percent and granted 77.0 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Lilien'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 Lilien's denial rate of 23.1 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Concord Immigration Court where Judge Lilien decided these cases denied asylum 25.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Lilien'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 Lilien, 0.8% 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 Lilien came from India. Individuals from this country made up 57.7% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Lilien were: Mexico (10.0%), Guatemala (4.6%), Afghanistan (3.8%), Armenia (3.8%). 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%).