Immigration judges in Louisiana have denied asylum claims at a higher rate than almost any other courts in the nation over the past five years, according to federal data. However, a new federal rule might downsize their role in asylum proceedings.
Between 2016 and 2021, the 15 immigration judges in New Orleans, Oakdale, and Jena denied 4,119 of the 4,632 claims they heard, marking an 88.36% denial rate statewide, according to an Acadiana Advocate analysis of data from Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse.
In comparison, an average of 67.6% of asylum cases were denied nationwide during the same period.
Sometimes hearings are delayed because of a significant backlog of immigration cases, which in February topped 1.6 million cases, up from 1.1 million before the pandemic and more than double the caseload that existed in the fiscal year 2018. Sometimes a hearing is rescheduled to allow an immigrant to find legal representation.
In Louisiana, asylum seekers are often not represented at all, especially when their hearings take place in rural courts located in remote areas of the state far from New Orleans.
Figures showed that in Jena almost 49% of the asylum seekers did not have legal representation between 2016 and 2021. In Oakdale, that number was 45.2% during the same period. In comparison, in New Orleans courts, only 12.46% of the immigrants did not find legal representation.
But this issue has affected asylum seekers nationwide since the federal government began prosecuting asylum cases, said Law Professor Darlene Goring, who teaches immigration law at LSU.
“Immigration law is very complex, and often the outcome of matter may be impacted by the presence or absence of legal representation,” she said. “Imagine a non-citizen who fled perilous circumstances thrown into a legal proceeding that has existential consequences without the benefit of financial resources to retain legal counsel.”
According to the TRAC data, 88% of asylum cases are denied nationwide when the immigrants are not represented by an attorney.
“It would not be surprising that the outcome of the immigration proceeding is less than favorable for that non-citizen,” Goring said.
Goring also said that asylum applicants had the right to present their cases with legal assistance.
“I am not suggesting that the government should provide free legal representation to asylum applicants. But the bottom line here is that we need more immigration attorneys to handle cases on a pro bono basis. There must be a middle ground to find.”
The new asylum rule and a judge in Lafayette
To fight the immigration court backlog, the Biden administration introduced a new asylum rule that authorizes asylum officers with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to approve or reject asylum applications by immigrants who assert a fear of persecution or torture at the border.
If the first interview is approved, the case moves to another USCIS officer, who must establish within 45 days the final approval or the rejection of the case.
If the case is rejected, the asylum seeker has the right to appeal that decision to an immigration court.
The new rule went into effect May 31. And it was welcomed by many immigration attorneys, because it would end the adversarial process that allowed federal prosecutors to fight every asylum claim in court even when a credible fear interview was approved in the first place.
Until May 31, an immigrant who crossed the border and was not immediately rejected under Title 42 had to prove to a USCIS officer in a first step of the asylum process, known as a credible fear interview, that that person was a victim of persecution in his or her country of origin.
If credible fear of persecution was established in the initial interview, the case was then directly moved to the immigration court.
“I feel that the big problem we face today is that there is a real dehumanization of the entire process,” said Mich Gonzalez, Associate Director of Advocacy at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
He said most of the court hearings happened via video teleconference, even before the pandemic.
“So these judges don’t even have to look the human being in the face when they order them to be deported. Sometimes, people don’t think that, but their deportation might result in their death.”
The new rule was criticized by immigration attorneys who claimed the fast pace of this new process might worsen the existing lack of legal representation for asylum seekers instead of addressing it.
“I see the problem as a lack of resources for the entire immigration adjudication system as it relates to the federal government and asylum applicants,” Goring said. “I am not certain that USCIS is currently prepared to quickly implement such an ambitious undertaking.”
In May, more than 20 Republican-led states, including Louisiana, sued the Biden administration over the new asylum rule, claiming it would erode the asylum integrity safeguards and that it would violate the law.
The states argued that under the current system less than 15% of all asylum claims that pass the first credible fear interview are ultimately approved by immigration judges.
The predictable result of the new asylum rule, the states wrote, "is more lawlessness at the southern border, leaving the States to shoulder the enormous costs of Defendants’ destructive policies and a border beset with ever more horrifying levels of cartel violence and other security threats."
The lawsuit is expected to be heard by a Lafayette judge, David C. Joseph with the U.S. Western District Court of Louisiana.
Court by court
An analysis of the TRAC data showed that 9 of the 15 immigration judges currently hearing asylum claims were appointed by former Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In Jena, where it is more likely that claims by asylum seekers with criminal histories will be heard, the asylum denial rate is 91.5%, data showed.
Judge Cassie Thogersen, appointed in October 2018, denied 168 of the 174 asylum claims she heard. Judge Steven Fuller, also appointed in October 2018, granted only 5 of 137 asylum claims. Judge Grady Crooks denied 233 of the 245 asylum claims, marking a 95.1% denial rate.
But pro-migrant advocacy groups said that even asylum seekers with no criminal history are denied at high rates despite often bringing proof of abuses and torture in their countries of origin.
“It takes very little criminal history to make you ineligible for everything,” Gonzalez said. “Even when the vast majority of the people judges see have no criminal history at all, in Oakdale for example, the denial rate remains incredibly high.”
TRAC data showed that in Oakdale, a court in rural Louisiana, immigration judges denied 85.6% of the cases heard between 2016 and 2021.
One of them, Judge Agnelis Reese, denied 99.5% of the cases she has heard since she was appointed in April 1997 by the Clinton administration. Reese, who retired in 2020, granted only 1 case of the 156 she ruled between 2016 and 2020, TRAC data showed.
But having legal representation is not often enough to convince a judge to grant asylum despite proof of previous persecution.
The five immigration judges in New Orleans denied 2,229 cases and granted 334, marking an 87.6 percent asylum denial rate, according to TRAC data. Of those, Judge Randall Fluke has the highest denial rate after he denied 96 of 100 cases since he was appointed by former Attorney General William Barr in October 2020.