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Immigration courts in California

EOIR runs 15 immigration courts in California, with 417 judges assigned to them today. They completed 165,711 proceedings in FY2025 and had 62,914 still waiting.

American Factbook Research

What the courts here did in FY2025

165,711
Proceedings completed, FY2025
27.5% decided in absentia
62,914
Proceedings pending at 2026-09
50.6%
Asylum grant rate, FY2021–FY2025
against 37.3% across the country over the same five years

Asylum grant rate at the courts in California, by fiscal year

Immigration courts in California granted asylum in 34.8% of decisions in FY2025, against 23.2% across the country

Asylum applications granted as a share of those granted or denied, at the immigration courts sitting in California, by federal fiscal year, against every immigration court in the country over the same years. Year by year, where the figures above this chart are over the five years to FY2025 — so the last point here is FY2025 alone. Courts sitting in California, not its residents: a detained court hears cases from far outside the state it sits in.

A rate is applications granted over applications granted plus denied. Those abandoned, withdrawn, administratively closed or otherwise not adjudicated are in neither side of it, and across EOIR’s release they outnumber the decisions.

None of this measures how a court decides. Representation and the detained share of a docket move a grant rate more than the court does, and this site has loaded neither.

U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review — EOIR immigration court outcomes

The figures behind this chart
Immigration courts in California granted asylum in 34.8% of decisions in FY2025, against 23.2% across the country. Asylum applications granted as a share of those granted or denied, at the immigration courts sitting in California, by federal fiscal year, against every immigration court in the country over the same years. Year by year, where the figures above this chart are over the five years to FY2025 — so the last point here is FY2025 alone. Courts sitting in California, not its residents: a detained court hears cases from far outside the state it sits in.
Fiscal yearCaliforniaUnited States
FY202534.8%23.2%
FY202455.3%43.6%
FY202364.0%47.3%
FY202256.7%46.2%
FY202145.5%37.1%
FY202034.2%28.0%
FY201941.6%30.2%
FY201838.4%33.7%
FY201741.9%38.3%
FY201641.3%43.5%
FY201538.1%48.6%
FY201436.7%49.0%
FY201339.3%52.8%
FY201242.6%55.5%
FY201144.0%52.1%
FY201045.9%50.7%
FY200945.1%47.5%
FY200841.4%45.2%
FY200742.5%46.3%
FY200645.3%44.7%

Sacramento granted 72.8% and Adelanto granted 6.5%

The 11 courts in California with enough decisions to rank granted asylum at rates 66.3 points apart over the five years to FY2025. A state figure is the sum of them, and the sum is not what either court did.

Sacramento · 72.8%Adelanto · 6.5%

Sacramento is 1 of 11 by asylum grant rate among California's courts, at 72.8%. Highest on the left.

The 11 figures behind this strip
Every jurisdiction by asylum grant rate among California's courts, highest first, with Sacramento marked
RankNameAsylum grant rate among California's courts
1Sacramento72.8%
2San Francisco70.9%
3Concord52.3%
4Van Nuys49.3%
5Imperial48.7%
6Los Angeles42.7%
7San Diego42.0%
8Otay Mesa29.1%
9Santa Ana28.5%
10Los Angeles27.1%
11Adelanto6.5%

Every immigration court in California

1 more column on a wider screen

Immigration courts sitting in California, with what EOIR records for each
CourtJudges assigned nowAsylum grant rate
Adelanto1296.5%
Concord2852.3%
Imperial12648.7%
Lancaster2not reported
Los Angeles WLA17942.7%
Los Angeles LOS120not reported
Los Angeles NLA1127.1%
Los Angeles LAD1not reported
Otay Mesa4529.1%
Sacramento2272.8%
San Diego7142.0%
San Francisco170.9%
San Pedro4not reported
Santa Ana4628.5%
Van Nuys1549.3%

Every immigration court by asylum grant rate ranks these against the rest of the country, which is the comparison this page does not make: the strip above places them among California’s own. By proceedings pending ranks them by backlog.

A court with no rate decided fewer than 100 asylum applications in the window, which is too few for a rate to mean anything; its own page states the count. Judges assigned is a count of people with a live assignment, and a judge assigned to several courts in California is one person on each of their rows — which is why 417 is fewer than the column added up.

California elsewhere on the Factbook

  • Reported crimeCrime and justice

    Offenses reported to police by type, the trend, and the reporting coverage.

  • Cities by violent crime rateCrime and justice

    What each agency serving 25,000 or more reported, ranked. Agency populations overlap, so these do not add up to the state.

  • Prison populationCrime and justice

    People held under the state’s correctional authority, and the imprisonment rate. A different publisher counting a different thing.

  • Arrests by race, sex and ageCrime and justice

    Arrests as the FBI’s participating agencies reported them, with what the figures can and cannot support at the top.

  • Hate crimeCrime and justice

    Incidents reported to the FBI by bias motivation, as counts — the collection publishes no participation share, so there is no rate to compare states on.

  • Federal obligationsFederal spending

    What federal agencies obligated against a place of performance in the state, per resident and by agency.

  • Registered nonprofitsNonprofits

    How many organizations the IRS lists in the state, what they report as revenue, and which kinds of work they do.

  • Payments to doctorsHealth

    What drug and device companies reported paying doctors with a practice address in the state, and the largest recipients.

  • Farm program paymentsFarm subsidies

    What the Farm Service Agency paid through the state’s county offices, by program and by recipient. The offices that administered the payments, not a count of farms: a recipient addressed elsewhere is counted where they were paid.

  • The California Factbook entryAcross the Factbook

    Every measure the Factbook publishes for this state in one place, each with where it ranks among the others and the record it came from.

The immigration hub has no page for this state: EOIR runs no immigration court here, and CBP publishes by sector and field office, which are its own areas of responsibility rather than a geography. Immigration and the border.

Sources

Data retrieved