Immigration judge Ellen Karesh

EOIR records Ellen Karesh as a serving immigration judge, code KAR, with 2,544 proceedings completed in the five fiscal years to 2025 and 16.5% of the asylum applications decided granted, against 37.3% across the country.

American Factbook Research

What these figures are, and what they are not

None of this measures how this judge decides. Represented and unrepresented applicants have very different outcomes and a judge’s mix of the two is not the judge’s doing; so is the share of their docket that is detained, and detention courts grant asylum at a fraction of the rate other courts do. EOIR publishes representation in a table this site has not loaded, and nothing here adjusts for either.

A grant rate is over decisions, not over applications. Applications that were abandoned, withdrawn, administratively closed, transferred or not adjudicated are counted separately below and are in neither side of the rate. Across EOIR’s whole file there are more of those than there are grants and denials together.

Proceedings, not people, and a case can carry several. The figures below count proceedings and asylum applications, which are both larger than the number of people involved. Pending is a snapshot as of 2026-09-01 and moves every month.

Cases, decisions and backlog

2,544
Proceedings completed, FY2021–2025: 5.0% decided in absentia; 6,720
Proceedings pending at 2026-09: 16.5%
Asylum grant rate, FY2022–2025: 66 granted of 399 decided

Over the 4 fiscal years from 2022 to 2025, this judge granted 66 asylum applications and denied 333 — 16.5% of those decided, against 37.3% across the country. A further 552 ended neither way and are in neither figure.

By fiscal year

2 more columns on a wider screen

What EOIR records for immigration judge Ellen Karesh, by federal fiscal year
Fiscal year	Completed	In absentia	Asylum granted	Asylum denied	Neither
FY2025	623	19	19	246	236
FY2024	790	84	14	17	156
FY2023	413	21	26	21	112
FY2022	716	4	7	49	47
FY2021	2	0	0	0	1
FY2020	0	0	0	0	0
FY2019	10	2	0	0	0
FY2018	5	3	0	0	1
FY2017	2	0	0	2	0
FY2016	8	3	0	0	2

Complete fiscal years only. A proceeding is counted in the year it completed, which is not the year it was recorded, so this table is not a record of what arrived.

Where the proceedings were

Immigration courts where Ellen Karesh completed proceedings
Court	Proceedings completed
Charlotte, NC (CHL)	2,661
Elizabeth, NJ (ELZ)	935
Pearsall, TX (PSD)	399
Detroit, MI (DET)	204
New York, NY (NYC)	57
Boston, MA (BOS)	48
Los Fresnos, TX (PEP)	40
Jena, LA (JNA)	34
Oakdale, LA (OAK)	10
Annandale, VA (WAS)	9
Conroe, TX (CIC)	8
El Paso, TX (ELP)	7
Dallas, TX (DAL)	5
Los Fresnos, TX (PIS)	5
Annandale, VA (ANN)	4
Chelmsford, MA (CHE)	4
Cleveland, OH (CLE)	3
Houston, TX (HOU)	3
Houston, TX (HSG)	3
Chicago, IL (CHI)	2
Harlingen, TX (HLG)	2
Laredo, TX (LRO)	2
Newark, NJ (NEW)	2
New Orleans, LA (NOL)	2
San Antonio, TX (SNA)	2
Sterling, VA (STE)	2
Van Nuys, CA (VNS)	2
Houston, TX (HGP)	1
Las Vegas, NV (LVG)	1
Memphis, TN (MEM)	1
Miami, FL (MIA)	1
New York, NY (NYV)	1
Guaynabo, PR (SAJ)	1
Los Angeles, CA (WLA)	1

The courts where EOIR records this judge completing proceedings, which is not the same as the courts they are assigned to: a judge is assigned to a median of three at once and as many as 72, and an assignment is not a posting.

Sources

EOIR immigration court outcomes by judge, court and fiscal year — U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review · retrieved September 1, 2026
EOIR immigration judges and courts

Data retrieved September 1, 2026