Immigration judge Matthew J. O'Brien

EOIR records Matthew J. O'Brien as a serving immigration judge, code MOB, with 1,409 proceedings completed in the five fiscal years to 2025 and 9.8% of the asylum applications decided granted, against 37.3% across the country.

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 Applications that were abandoned, withdrawn, administratively closed, transferred or not adjudicated are counted separately below and are in neither side of the rate.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

1,409
Proceedings completed, FY2021–2025: 7.7% decided in absentia; 0
Proceedings pending as of September 2026: 9.8%
Asylum grant rate, FY2021–2025: 32 granted of 327 decided

Over the 4 fiscal years from 2021 to 2025, this judge granted 32 asylum applications and denied 295 — 9.8% of those decided, against 37.3% across the country. A further 401 ended neither way and are in neither figure.

By fiscal year

2 more columns on a wider screen

What EOIR records for immigration judge Matthew J. O'Brien, by federal fiscal year
Fiscal year	Completed	In absentia	Asylum granted	Asylum denied	Neither
FY2025	72	6	0	28	6
FY2024	0	0	0	0	0
FY2023	245	0	14	14	58
FY2022	677	40	5	74	248
FY2021	415	62	13	179	89
FY2020	59	7	0	9	13
FY2019	12	3	0	0	2
FY2018	2	0	0	0	0
FY2017	1	0	0	0	0
FY2016	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 Matthew J. O'Brien completed proceedings
Court	Proceedings completed
Annandale, VA (WAS)	1,383
Annandale, VA (ANN)	45
Miami, FL (KRO)	22
Sterling, VA (STE)	7
Harlingen, TX (HLG)	6
Houston, TX (HOU)	4
Denver, CO (DEN)	3
Jena, LA (JNA)	3
Elizabeth, NJ (ELZ)	2
Imperial, CA (IMP)	2
Sacramento, CA (SMO)	2
Baltimore, MD (BAL)	1
Charlotte, NC (CHL)	1
El Paso, TX (ELP)	1
Otero, NM (OTO)	1
Pearsall, TX (PSD)	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