Immigration judge Erica Hughes

EOIR records Erica Hughes as a serving immigration judge, code EHS, with 3,223 proceedings completed in the five fiscal years to 2024 and 3.7% 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 Applications that were abandoned, withdrawn, administratively closed, transferred or not adjudicated are counted separately below and are in neither side of the rate.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

3,223
Proceedings completed, FY2020–2024: 8.7% decided in absentia; 0
Proceedings pending at 2026-09: 3.7%
Asylum grant rate, FY2020–2024: 7 granted of 189 decided

Over the 4 fiscal years from 2020 to 2024, this judge granted 7 asylum applications and denied 182 — 3.7% of those decided, against 37.3% across the country. A further 1,036 ended neither way and are in neither figure.

By fiscal year

2 more columns on a wider screen

What EOIR records for immigration judge Erica Hughes, by federal fiscal year
Fiscal year	Completed	In absentia	Asylum granted	Asylum denied	Neither
FY2024	395	52	0	4	88
FY2023	1,902	57	1	92	615
FY2022	911	168	6	85	333
FY2021	10	0	0	0	0
FY2020	5	2	0	1	0
FY2019	10	4	0	1	2
FY2018	0	0	0	0	0
FY2017	5	0	0	0	0
FY2016	2	0	0	0	1
FY2015	8	7	0	0	0

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 Erica Hughes completed proceedings
Court	Proceedings completed
Houston, TX (HOU)	3,228
Harlingen, TX (HLG)	8
Houston, TX (HSG)	7
Houston, TX (HGP)	4
El Paso, TX (ELP)	2
Imperial, CA (IMP)	2
New York, NY (NYC)	2
Pearsall, TX (PSD)	2
San Antonio, TX (SNA)	2
Denver, CO (DEN)	1
El Paso, TX (EPD)	1
Philadelphia, PA (PHI)	1
San Francisco, CA (SFR)	1
Van Nuys, CA (VNS)	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 · Public domain. Information on Department of Justice websites is in the public domain unless otherwise indicated. · retrieved September 1, 2026
EOIR immigration judges and courts

Data retrieved September 1, 2026