Judge Billy J. Sapp

FY 2019 - 2024, Conroe Immigration Court

Published Nov 7, 2024

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Billy J. Sapp to begin hearing cases in November2018. Judge Sapp earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1997 from Emory University and a Juris Doctorin 2001 from the University of Houston Law Center. From 2002 to 2018, he served as anassistant chief counsel and senior attorney with the Office of the Chief Counsel, Immigration andCustoms Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Baltimore. Judge Sapp is a memberof the State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Sapp were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2019 through 2024. During this period, court records show that Judge Sapp decided 424 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 67, granted 29 other types of relief, and denied relief to 328. Converted to percentage terms, Sapp denied 77.4 percent and granted 22.6 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Sapp'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 Sapp's denial rate of 77.4 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 57.7 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Conroe Immigration Court where Judge Sapp decided these cases denied asylum 80.5 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Sapp'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 Sapp, 52.8% 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 Sapp came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 18.9% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Sapp were: Mexico (14.4%), El Salvador (10.6%), Nicaragua (10.1%), Cuba (7.8%). 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%).