Immigration judge Joseph Vail

EOIR records Joseph Vail as a former immigration judge, code JV, with 3,404 proceedings completed in the five fiscal years to 2000 and 33.3% 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 Applications that were abandoned, withdrawn, administratively closed, transferred or not adjudicated are counted separately below and are in neither side of the rate.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

3,404
Proceedings completed, FY1996–2000: 30.5% decided in absentia; 0
Proceedings pending at 2026-09: 33.3%
Asylum grant rate, FY1996–1999: 201 granted of 603 decided

Over the 4 fiscal years from 1996 to 1999, this judge granted 201 asylum applications and denied 402 — 33.3% of those decided, against 37.3% across the country. A further 522 ended neither way and are in neither figure.

By fiscal year

2 more columns on a wider screen

What EOIR records for immigration judge Joseph Vail, by federal fiscal year
Fiscal year	Completed	In absentia	Asylum granted	Asylum denied	Neither
FY2000	2	0	0	0	0
FY1999	413	116	22	51	76
FY1998	1,176	219	33	99	136
FY1997	875	356	58	109	145
FY1996	938	348	88	143	165
FY1995	261	107	20	29	23
FY1994	0	0	0	0	0
FY1993	0	0	0	0	0
FY1991	1	1	0	0	1
FY1989	0	0	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 Joseph Vail completed proceedings
Court	Proceedings completed
Houston, TX (HOU)	3,471
Dallas, TX (DAL)	121
Chicago, IL (CHI)	42
Conroe, TX (CIC)	20
Memphis, TN (MEM)	15

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