Few Applicants Succeed in Immigration Courts

WASHINGTON — Nearly every day, in courtrooms across the country, immigrants appear before special judges who are entrusted to render "fair and proper" decisions.

In 9 out of 10 cases, the judges order the immigrants deported.

A Los Angeles Times examination of the nation's immigration courts reveals a system in which judges are overburdened, immigrants are intimidated and justice often seems arbitrary.

"The system, I think, frankly, is overwhelmed," said Bryan Scott Hicks, a Cincinnati immigration lawyer. "A lot more is not working than is working."

The Times analysis of 1.2 million Immigration Court cases closed from 1994 to 2000 found that:

* It can take more than a year in some cities, including Los Angeles, to get a full hearing before an immigration judge.

* Some judges approve only 1 in 100 asylum requests they consider, while others approve as many as half. (Eleven of the 23 strictest judges are based in Los Angeles.)

* Immigrants with lawyers are 17 times more likely to avoid deportation than those without them.

The judges work for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a branch of the U.S. Justice Department created in 1983 to separate the courts from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Today, 219 immigration judges work in 52 courts across the country. California, with its heavy influx of immigrants, has 54 judges.

The judges hold enormous power over the lives of many immigrants, hearing about 260,000 matters a year. In most cases, these people end up in immigration court because the INS has charged them with violating immigration laws or has questions about their claims. The judges then decide whether they deserve some form of legal relief in lieu of regular deportation. The options range from asylum to legal residency to a special kind of deportation that allows them to return to America in the future with a clean record.

"You don't have the kind of due process protections in place that Americans would expect to have," said Bill Frelick, director of policy for the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a nongovernmental advocacy group. "You're dealing with people who don't speak the language, don't know the laws and are intimidated by a judge in robes speaking into a recorder."

The stakes are often highest for immigrants requesting political asylum. U.S. law says asylum-seekers must prove they have a "well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion." The Supreme Court has interpreted that to mean a "reasonable fear."