31 May 2007

U.S. asylum decisions

The New York Times reported today about "big disparities" that exist in the "judging of asylum cases" in the U.S. The article discusses the findings of a study undertaken by three law professors that examined 140,000 decisions made by 225 immigration judges. They determined that the "chance of winning asylum was strongly affected by whether or not the applicant had legal representation, by the gender of the immigration judge, and by the immigration judge's work experience prior to appointment." An abstract of the study (to be published in full in the Stanford Law Review) is available on SSRN.com.

An earlier study by TRAC also found significant variations in the asylum decisions of immigration judges.

Posted in Publications.

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