Judge Melissa Joy Garcia

FY 2019 - 2024, Harlingen Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker appointed Melissa Joy Garcia to begin hearingcases in March 2019. Judge Garcia earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1995 from the University ofTexas at San Antonio and a Juris Doctor in 2001 from St. Mary’s School of Law. In 2008, shewas an assistant city attorney for the City of Laredo, Texas. From 2008 to 2018, she served forWebb County, Laredo, Texas in various roles as an assistant public defender, a justice of thepeace for Precinct Two, Place Two, and an associate district judge. Judge Garcia is a member ofthe State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Garcia were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Garcia decided 109 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 39, granted 7 other types of relief, and denied relief to 63. Converted to percentage terms, Garcia denied 57.8 percent and granted 42.2 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Garcia'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 Garcia's denial rate of 57.8 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Harlingen Immigration Court where Judge Garcia decided these cases denied asylum 73.5 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Garcia'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 Garcia, 45.9% 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 Garcia came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 30.3% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Garcia were: Cuba (22.0%), Venezuela (20.2%), Mexico (19.3%), El Salvador (3.7%). 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%).