Seeking Asylum in the U.S.? Choose Your Judge Carefully

Immigration judges vary sharply in their willingness to grant asylum to foreigners seeking to live in the United States -- with denial rates ranging from 10 percent to more than 98 percent, according to a review of federal figures.

From fiscal 2000 through the first months of fiscal 2005, Judge Mahlon F. Hanson in Miami had the highest proportion of denials, rejecting 96.7 percent of petitioners in 1,118 cases in which the asylum seeker had a lawyer.

The study, which was released yesterday, is based on data from the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, for 1994-99 and 2000-05. The report was done by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which collects and analyzes federal government data.

New York Judge Margaret McManus rejected just 0.8 percent of her 1,638 cases in which the asylum seeker had a lawyer. The median denial rate was 65 percent.

She and Hanson have contrasting backgrounds: Hanson had worked for the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service. McManus was a staff lawyer with the Legal Aid Society's immigration unit.

"The goal of any court system is evenhanded justice," said Susan Long, a Syracuse University professor and co-director of the clearinghouse. "The results certainly raise questions about whether that goal is being achieved."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales began a review of the immigration courts in January after chastising some of the immigration judges for "intemperate or even abusive" conduct toward asylum seekers. Department spokesman Charles Miller said the review is continuing.

The study said the court data "document that this problem has existed for at least a decade and that it persists even when the applicants being compared appear to be quite similar."

The United States grants asylum to people who could be persecuted in their countries because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Asylum was granted to 13,520 people in 2005, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics.

Rates were worse for asylum seekers without lawyers: 93 percent lost their cases compared with 64 percent for those with a lawyer. The denial rate for all asylum seekers was 69 percent.

People from El Salvador, Haiti and Mexico were denied asylum 80 percent of the time; asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Burma were denied asylum 30 percent of the time.

Previous studies have shown similar disparities suggesting a lack of standards for judges, said Gideon Aronoff, president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. He said success in asylum claims is a matter of "luck of the draw."

-- Associated Press