• Robert Thompson (Newhouse): ��, , , ,
• Carl Schramm (iSchool):
• Osamah Khalil, (Maxwell): |
• Gregory Germain (Law): |
• Cameron Miller (Whitman):
• Dennis Deninger (Falk):
• Bill Werde (Newhouse):
• Hamid Ekbia (Maxwell):
• Thomas Constable and John Dean (Whitman): ����
• Jun Li (Maxwell):
• Alan Allport (Maxwell): I ��
• Vanessa Marquette (University Communications):
• Emily Thorson (Maxwell):
• David Driesen (Law):
• Lee McKnight (iSchool):
• Jack Graves (Law):
• J. Christopher Hamilton (Newhouse):
• Lindsey Darvin (Falk):
• George Theoharis (Education):
• Austin Kocher (TRAC): ,
• Jeffrey Karson (Arts & Sciences) and Robert Wysocki (Visual and Performing Arts):
• Ryan Griffiths (Maxwell): ��
• Robert Murrett (Law/Maxwell):
• Pat Penfield (Whitman) : , , , ,����
• Sylvia Sierra (VPA) :
• Lisa Manning (Arts & Sciences): ��
• Roy Gutterman (Newhouse): , , I I
• Jacob Bendix (Maxwell):
• Jing Lei (Education):
• Lauryn Gouldin (Law):
• Dean Cole Smith (Engineering and Computer Science):

To get in touch and learn more about Syracuse University faculty members available for interviews, please contact��media@syr.edu.

While the percent of immigrants who were denied asylum went up each year during the Trump administration to a high of 71 percent in FY 2020, they fell to 63 percent in FY 2021. Success rates grew from 29 percent to 37 percent under President Biden.

However, due to the pandemic, fewer asylum cases are being decided by immigration judges. This means fewer total asylum seekers actually won their cases despite this improving success rate. During FY 2021 just 23,827 asylum decisions were issued, down from 60,079 decisions during FY 2020. These statistics count all decisions rendered on the merits of asylum seekers’ claims.

Even with the greater odds of success, the number of asylum seekers who were granted asylum during FY 2021 was only 8,349 with an additional 402 granted another type of relief instead of asylum. In sheer numbers, this was only about half the number of asylum seekers who had been granted relief during FY 2020.

You can see the original published report on

is an assistant professor and researcher at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement, and deportation, the immigration court system, and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.

“Our new detailed report on asylum cases decided in FY 2021 sheds new light on how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the Biden administration have impacted the everyday functions of the immigration court system. For instance, we found that the success rate for asylum-seekers in immigration court has gone up since Joe Biden became president, even though the total number of people being granted asylum has actually declined since the Trump administration. We also found when it comes to understanding who gets asylum and why, key factors here include nationality and access to legal representation most important.”

To request an interview with Dr. Kocher, please contact Joshua Grossman, director of media relations, ��at jmgrossm@syr.edu or 202.227.9250����

Kocher discussed the recent rise in immigrants being granted asylum under Biden’s presidency. He says, “The obvious inference is, oh, well this is because of Biden.” Kocher goes on to explain, ‘the Biden Administration has made no major policy changes that would influence how immigration judges rule in asylum cases.’ Kocher instead says that ‘the higher rate of asylum grants may be due to a confluence of factors.’

In Kocher’s commentary, he discussed the lack of protection being given to places like churches and other religious institutions, which are supposed to be ‘protected areas.’ He said, ‘On a positive note, this description does suggest that Mayorkas wants immigration enforcement officers to think contextually about the broader social impacts of immigration enforcement activities. I suppose if one wanted to be generous, this could be interpreted as a good thing. And it certainly appears to reaffirm and even expand the protections provided under the Morton Memo for immigrants seeking sanctuary.’

Kocher discussed the change in legislation regarding immigration from Mexico under the Biden Administration. Kocher provided data for this article highlighting that ‘Of the roughly 25,000 people who had pending cases at the time, more than 11,300 have entered the United States to continue asylum claims from here, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Department of Homeland Security. They’ve transferred their cases to cities across the United States and, according to data from TRAC at Syracuse University, most MPP cases are being transferred to Miami, Orlando, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.’

The slowing of the transfer pace during May was unexpected because the fraction of MPP cases paroled into the country remains small compared to the total number of possible MPP cases. In fact, just under 40% of possible MPP cases have been transferred out of MPP courts according to court data.

Highlights from the report are below:

• Overall, 40% of all people with pending MPP cases have been transferred away from the MPP courts—a total of 10,375 people.
• 60% (16,138) pending MPP cases remain assigned to MPP courts along the US-Mexico border.
• In May, 1,988 MPP cases transferred out of MPP courts, a sharp decline from April when 4,476 cases were moved out of MPP.
• Not all ports of entry along the border are equal. Half of the pending cases from Brownsville, Texas, have been allowed into the country, while 23% of cases in Calexico have.
• About half of the asylum-seekers from Venezuela (71%) and Cuba (58%) have been allowed into the country so far. Only 16% of asylum seekers from Brazil and 5% of asylum-seekers from Ecuador have entered the country.
• 80 immigration courts across the country have received MPP cases. The most common immigration courts for MPP are: Miami, Florida (2,195 cases); Orlando, Florida (1,054 cases); Dallas, Texas (578); Houston, Texas (S. Gessner) (450); and Houston (Greenspoint Park) (403).

Austin Kocher

is an assistant professor and researcher at TRAC, which uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement, and deportation, the immigration court system, and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.

In response to today’s announcement, Kocher said:

“The sharp decline in the number of MPP cases transferred into the country could be due to a number of factors, but most importantly, it appears that the U.S. government and UNHCR in Mexico are reaching a limit on the number of people with pending MPP cases they can find to inform them of the change in policy under the Biden administration. The Biden administration also has yet to announce if and how they plan to address the more than 40,000 MPP cases that have already been closed. In practical terms, this means that even with over 10,000 asylum seekers in MPP allowed into the United States, the majority of MPP cases remain either in limbo or without any opportunity to be processed at this point.”

TRAC is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government

To request an interview with TRAC researchers, please contact:

Joshua M. Grossman ’03
Director of Media Relations, Division of Communications and Marketing
T 202.227.9250 | jmgrossm@syr.edu

The�� (TRAC) a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending, and enforcement activities of the federal government

(TRAC) has been at the forefront of providing regularly-updated data and analysis on MPP since the start of the program in January 2019.��Over 70,000 asylum-seekers were ultimately affected by MPP.��

See all MPP cases at��, including rates of attorney representation, nationality, month and year that each case began, court location, and the outcome of the case.

TRAC published several in-depth reports of MPP, often with findings that are more detailed that what is available in the public MPP tool above.

• May 11, 2021��–��
• April 26, 2021 –��
• April 21, 2021 –��
• October 20, 2020 –��
• December 19, 2019 –��
• August 26, 2019 –��
• July 29, 2019 –��

Austin Kocher

��is an assistant professor and researcher at (TRAC), a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement, and deportation, the immigration court system, and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.

In response to today’s announcement, Kocher said, “Today’s announcement from Secretary Mayorkas that MPP is officially terminated represents the end of a controversial program that significantly changed how asylum cases were processed along the U.S.-Mexico border. TRAC’s data on MPP will remain a powerful and relevant public archive of this policy.”

To request an interview with TRAC researchers, please contact:

Joshua M. Grossman ’03
Director of Media Relations
Division of Communications and Marketing

T 202.227.9250
jmgrossm@syr.edu

A new report from TRAC based on the government’s own data shows that nearly a third of all of these cases have now been allowed into the United States. In total, 8,387 individuals forced to remain in Mexico under MPP have been allowed into the country by the end of April 2021. This is an acceleration from the end of March when����that 3,911 migrants had been allowed in by the end of March 2021.

Highlights from the report include:

• Overall, 32% of all people with pending MPP cases have been allowed into the country.
• Not all ports of entry along the border are equal. Nearly half (44%) of the pending cases from Brownsville, Texas, have been allowed into the country while 20% of cases in Calexico have.
• About half of the asylum-seekers from Venezuela (51%) and Cuba (46%) have been allowed into the country so far. Only 4% of asylum-seekers from Ecuador have entered even though they represent the fourth largest group of asylum-seekers with 2,557 pending cases.
• Just 9% of migrants still in Mexico have an attorney. This doubles to 19% for migrants who have entered the country since Biden took office.
• Nearly one-third (31%) of all MPP cases allowed into the country went to immigration courts in Miami and Orlando, Florida. Other top courts include courts in Texas (Dallas, San Antonio and Houston); Atlanta, Georgia; Los Angeles, California; and Arlington, Virginia.
• 18,087 individuals with pending asylum cases have not yet entered the country.

is an assistant professor and researcher at TRAC, a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement and deportation, the immigration court system, and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.

Kocher, who worked on the report, says,��“My main takeaway from this report is just how many invisible inequalities exist with the immigration system. Seeking asylum in the United States may seem like a straightforward process of coming and asking for sanctuary. But what we continue to see in the data is that people often experience the system very differently depending on where they are from or which court they are assigned to when they arrive. In many ways, asylum is not one single process but rather a lot of little processes that depend not just on the law but on who you are.”

TRAC is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government

For members of the media seeking to request an interview with TRAC researchers, please contact:

Joshua M. Grossman ’03
Director of Media Relations, Division of Communications and Marketing
T 202.227.9250 | jmgrossm@syr.edu

The ��explains that the growing backlog of immigration cases means that immigrants now wait, on average, 1,600 days for their hearing and creates “crushing caseloads” for judges who have, on average, 3,000 pending cases each.

The letter goes on to call on Garland to use his “broad discretionary authority” to “identify and defer the adjudication of nonpriority cases”—which would reduce the number of cases that are actively pending in the courts. “Less than 1% of current backlog cases are a priority,” the letter claims.

Austin Kocher

is a faculty fellow with TRAC, a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. He says that this exercise of discretion would not be unusual.

“Law enforcement agencies of all kinds have broad discretion over how to prioritize resources to achieve their mission. If the Attorney General decided to put a pause on non-priority deportation cases, as the law professors are calling for, it would not end deportation by any means, but it could allow the courts to come up for air after years of drowning in cases. And given our up-to-date data on the courts, we would likely be able to quantify this change very quickly.”

of the immigration court backlog showed that during the Trump administration, the backlog grew from 542,000 cases to nearly 1.3 million. For additional context, view TRAC’s or .

Members of the media looking to request an interview with Kocher to gain more clarity on this issue may contact:

Joshua M. Grossman ’03
Director of Media Relations, Division of Communications and Marketing
T 202.227.9250 | jmgrossm@syr.edu

Austin Kocher

, research associate professor with the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), wrote an op-ed for The Conversation titled “.” ��uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government, focusing particularly on matters of immigration.

Kocher explains that during the Trump administration, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy was established, which effectively detained tens of thousands of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. Commonly known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, MPP forced detained migrants back into Mexico to file for asylum rather than allowing them into the U.S.

While the policy’s name may come across as a safety measure, Kocher says that MPP really created a refugee crisis in Mexico. Kocher says that the lack of resources along the border led to the setup of many tent camps and Catholic shelters where migrants tried to safely wait while their cases were evaluated. President Biden suspended the Migrant Protection Protocols on his first day in office, allowing more than 15,000 migrants into the U.S. after being stuck in tent camps in Mexico. However, Kocher says that the border still “reopened too late for most of the 41,247 migrants whose cases were rejected while they remained in Mexico.”

TRAC research shows that during the MPP era, only 641 migrants were granted asylum, a rate of 1.5 percent. Compared to 40 percent of asylum-seekers having their cases granted before MPP, Kocher says the policy was extremely detrimental for those seeking asylum in the U.S. Kocher writes that not only did MPP reduce migrants’ chances of being granted asylum, but it often forced people into dangerous and life-threatening situations, including rape, torture, kidnapping and involvement with drug cartels in northern Mexico.

Kocher says that migrants had a difficult choice at hand during MPP, and that was to either stay in the camps with hopes of winning their case or lose their chance. For some, Kocher says the risk paid off. But for others, there will be no second chance, Kocher concludes.

To read his essay in its entirety, visit .

Syracuse University media relations team members work regularly with the campus community to secure placements of op-eds. Anyone interested in writing an op-ed should first review the University’s op-ed guidelines and email media@syr.edu.

FOIA is an indispensable tool of democracy because it requires the government to release records to the public. FOIA requesters often have to sue to get the government to comply with this law. However, as from the FOIA Project, part of Syracuse University’s (TRAC), shows, there is a growing backlog on adjudicating FOIA cases and delays in receiving public information. At the end of 2020, there were 1,683 FOIA cases pending in the federal courts, the highest on record. Many of those cases have been pending for over five years without a ruling.

The����is one of the most important groups of FOIA requesters and litigators. Delays on FOIA cases are effectively undermining the public’s right to know and hampering the news media’s ability to get information for timely stories. Because of these delays, for example, FOIA requesters seeking records about Trump administration policies often will not obtain them until long after President Trump has left office. And unless matters change, the same will be true for FOIA requesters seeking records about the new Biden administration’s policies.

Austin Kocher

is a faculty fellow with TRAC, a research institute that uses FOIA requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement and deportation, the immigration court system and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.

Kocher offers the following perspective:

“FOIA is becoming undermined by endless delays. Federal officials increasingly ignore these deadlines, forcing FOIA requesters to take them to court. As a result, the number of FOIA lawsuits have been rising because federal agencies were often��. Now we see that federal judges are increasingly failing to rule in a timely manner when requesters are forced to file suit to enforce FOIA requirements. This presents a significant barrier to government transparency and accountability.”

Members of the media looking to request an interview with TRAC researchers should contact:

Joshua Grossman��
Director of Media Relations, Division of Communications and Marketing
T 202.227.9250 | jmgrossm@syr.edu

Austin Kocher

is a faculty fellow with the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. TRAC research noted that when President Donald Trump assumed office, 542,411 people had deportation cases pending before the immigration courts. At the start of 2021, that number now stands at 1,290,766—nearly two and a half times the level when Trump assumed office just four years ago. Waiting in the wings are another 300,000+ cases that President Trump’s policy changes have decided aren’t fully resolved, but have not yet been placed back on the active docket.

Because of the pile-up of cases, many cases in the backlog were initiated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) years ago. Some were initiated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), before the formation after 9/11 of the DHS. The average wait for a hearing date is now 1,642 days or 54 months. This is based on the average number of days between the date of the Notice to Appear (NTA) and its currently scheduled next hearing date. With the continuing pandemic, it is possible that many hearings could be postponed further. This appears likely to occur until regular hearing schedules resume in all courts. As such, Kocher believes there is no way to deal with this large backlog in the immigration courts without some measure of reform.

“President Biden inherited an immigration court backlog of nearly —the largest in U.S. history and nearly 2.5 times higher than the last year of the Obama administration. Data suggests that solving this crisis begins in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not in the courts,” Kocher says.

“In recent years, the number of cases in the court backlog has become a kind of barometric reading for the immigration enforcement system. Higher numbers of pending cases puts increased pressure on immigration judges to hastily decide complex cases that often involve . The backlog also leaves immigrants in limbo for years, which may prevent them from obtaining legal status and may keep them separated from their families.”

Where Does the Biden Administration Go From Here?

This report provides a valuable baseline for the public about the state of America’s immigration court system at the start of a new administration. Not only do these data paint a picture of an immigration court overwhelmed by immigration cases from the Department of Homeland Security, most of which do not appear driven by criminal deportability grounds, but these data also illustrate the diverse cross-section of immigrants in the county, many of whom have been in the United States for years. TRAC will continue to monitor changes in the court’s backlog as the first 100 days of the Biden administration unfold, and in the months that follow. A free , updated monthly, allows the public to monitor these changes by state, immigration court, hearing location and nationality.

To request an interview with TRAC researchers, please contact:

Joshua Grossman
Director of Media Relations, Division of Communications and Marketing
T 202.227.9250 | jmgrossm@syr.edu

A project of the University’s Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), the FOIA Project is a “FOIA accountability engine,” updated daily, that includes detailed information about every case that challenges government withholding in federal court. TRAC has started expanding coverage to decisions on FOIA administrative requests on an agency-by-agency basis.

“Journalists are a powerful force for government transparency and accountability, which is essential to a healthy democracy,” says Austin Kocher, research assistant professor with the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse in the Newhouse School. “Each FOIA lawsuit we analyzed represents a case where the news media believed that the government was withholding records that should be available to the public—and many of them were successful. Our findings show that reporters increasingly leverage FOIA law to provide the public with timely information and independent news stories about how our government works at a time when federal government agencies seem more politicized than ever.”

In fact, the media alone have filed a total of 386 FOIA cases during the four years of the Trump administration, from 2017 through 2020. This is greater than the total of 311 FOIA media cases filed during the sixteen years of the Bush and Obama administrations combined. The report, focuses on news media “FOIA litigants” (a.k.a. “FOIA plaintiffs”), including both traditional news organizations and alternative news sources when their primary purpose is to be a news source.

The FOIA Project’s analysis found that since Jan. 1, 2001, the news media has filed a total of 697 separate FOIA cases in federal court. Looking at these cases reveals 374 distinct plaintiffs, 117 news organizations and 257 individual reporters. A few key FOIA litigators rise to the top. The top ten filers make up less than 3 percent of all plaintiffs, yet they accounted for 281 of the 697 FOIA cases—40 percent of the total suits filed.

To view the list of top 10 FOIA litigators as well as a more expansive list of rising stars in the FOIA litigation community, view the FOIA Project’s . Using the FOIA Project’s unique dataset of FOIA cases filed in federal court, this report provides unprecedented and valuable insight into the rapid growth of media lawsuits designed to make the government more transparent and accountable to the public.

The complete, updated list of news media cases, along with the names of organizations and reporters who filed these suits, is available on the News Media List at .

Austin Kocher

, a research assistant professor and faculty fellow in the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse, wrote an op-ed for the Daily News titled “.” Kocher’s research interests include the political and legal geographies of policing and immigration.

When president-elect Joe Biden’s administration takes office in January it will inherit an Immigration Court backlog of nearly 1.3 million deportation cases. Based on research from Syracuse University’s this backlog is the largest ever in U.S. history, despite many immigration judges being hired over the past three years.

Kocher says this data suggests that the problem stems not from the courts but rather in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as ICE. While there is always a backlog of immigration cases, such a high number puts the lives and futures of immigrants at real risk. “The backlog also leaves immigrants in limbo for years, which may prevent them from obtaining legal status and may keep them separated from their families,” Kocher writes.

Additionally, Kocher explains that the COVID-19 pandemic has inflated the number of backlogged cases as courts were forced to cancel thousands of hearings while ICE continued to file new cases. “All this powerfully argues that the immigration court backlog is not primarily caused by the judges or their proceedings, but by ICE indiscriminately throwing more and more deportation cases into the adjudication machinery,” says Kocher. In the piece, Kocher argues that the only way for the incoming Biden administration to reduce the backlog is to work with ICE to limit the number of new cases filed.

Austin Kocher

, Whitman Faculty Fellow in the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), wrote an op-ed for The Hill titled “” Kocher’s research interests include the political and legal geographies of policing and immigration.

This fall President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the withholding of funds from so-called “anarchist jurisdictions.” It was later revealed that New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, were the specified “anarchist jurisdictions,” all of which saw extensive protests this summer.

In the piece, Kocher argues that President Trump’s attempts “to politicize federal funding through the notion of ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ is only the latest in a long line of strategies by political leaders to justify draconian policies by using imaginary legal geographies of disorder and chaos.”

Kocher, who is teaching an immigration course, , in spring 2021, draws parallels to the expansion of U.S.-Mexico border policing, as these similar attempts to create imaginary spaces of disorder have only worsened the situation.

“If he gets his way, Trump will turn his fictional world of ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ into reality, harming many people in the process,” Kocher writes.

Moreover, the size of the workload carried by senior judges last year was almost twice what it was two decades ago. In 1996, senior judges “terminated” 41,323 cases, or 14 percent of all civil and criminal matters. By 2014, the counts had jumped to 79,121 cases, 24 percent of the total.

The TRAC study found that while there is considerable year-to-year fluctuation, senior judge activity is up by nearly every metric: their numbers overall, the percentage of the judicial workforce they comprise and the average number of cases they are closing. In 1996, the 247 senior judges closed an average of 150 cases and made up 31 percent of all judges hearing cases. In 2014, there were 386 senior judges (38 percent of the total) who, on average, closed 205 cases during the year.

The core explanation for this change is simple: While the number of cases being funneled annually into the nation’s district courts has been steadily growing, Congress has for many years been reluctant to support the additional judgeships that have been regularly recommended by Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Justice William Rehnquist before him. As far back as January 2003, Rehnquist cited “rising caseloads, too many judicial vacancies and too few authorized judgeships” as problems facing the courts.

The result of this gridlock is that the role of the senior judges in the basic operation of the courts has grown considerably.

In another finding from the TRAC analysis, there is considerable variation in the utilization of senior judges among the nation’s judicial districts. At the higher end, for example, there were 24 courts in which the senior judges processed more than a third of all the civil and criminal matters. The records also showed, however, there were 10 jurisdictions where senior judges dealt with 5 percent or less of the workload. This in large part reflects the fact that the number and percentage of senior judges serving in each district also varies considerably.

For court administrators, the growing role of senior judges is a nagging and well-recognized phenomenon. For example, David Sellers, a long-time public affairs person in the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, was recently asked whether the availability of senior judges had helped meet the challenge of the growing caseloads.

“Congress has not enacted an omnibus judgeship bill since 1990,” Sellers observed. “Courts that need additional judgeships and/or suffer from long-term unfilled judicial vacancies particularly benefit from the contribution of senior judges.”

The lingering nature of the concerns can be seen in the September 2013 testimony of Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich, chair of the Judicial Resources Committee of the Judicial Conference Committee. “To enable the judiciary to continue serving litigants efficiently and effectively, the judicial work force must be expanded.”

Thus the contribution of the growing number of senior judges in helping an overburdened system achieve its core goals is a genuine benefit. But their expanding role in the operation of the courts also highlights important questions and concerns, including whether growing politicization of the judicial confirmation process is affecting the basic operation of the federal courts. The basic nature of this continuing problem becomes clear when it is considered that while the Democrat-controlled White House does the nominating, the Republican-controlled Congress must approve those nominees. Congress also must approve new judgeships and the funds needed to fill them.

Where Are the Senior Judges?

Because of the complex mix of many factors—including judge ages, years of service and the character of district caseloads—the workloads that senior judges carry differ dramatically across judicial districts.

Ranking at the top in the 2014 list was the Western District of Kentucky, where three quarters (75.1 percent) of its civil closures and defendant sentencing were handled by senior judges. Other districts where senior judges played a significant role were Vermont (63.7 percent of closures), Washington East (52.8 percent) and Utah (50.8 percent).

In his interview with TRAC, Chief Judge McKinley of Western Kentucky was asked what it was like managing a court with such a large percentage of senior judges.

“Well, it’s interesting to be the chief judge to three former chief judges in the same district,” McKinley said, also noting that he was the only non-senior judge in his district for much of 2014. “That’s just a little bit different, but we make it work.”

Judge McKinley said that at national judicial conferences, concerns have been expressed “about the cost of providing space and staff to senior judges.” But he said those comments were often followed by remarks from judges in other districts “who say the seniors are essential to the management of the district’s caseload.”

Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are three courts where the senior judges played no role—Delaware, Wyoming and North Dakota[4].

Help the identify the worst violations of the by casting your vote for a case of withholding worthy of this dishonor.

In honor of , the FOIA Project invited six prominent experts—Charlie Savage of The New York Times, Jason Leopold of VICE News, Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Nate Jones of the National Security Archive and Chris Farrell of Justice Watch—to nominate a FOIA case they feel represents a particularly egregious example of improper withholding. They nominated cases in which government agencies either ignored or declined requests for documents on some of the most interesting and controversial topics of our time: the use of drones by the FBI in domestic surveillance, the Obama Administration’s targeted killing of American citizens abroad, the Edward Snowden leaks and others.

Which would you vote for? Check out all the case summaries and vote at . The voting opens today, on the eve of National FOI Day, and ends on the last day of Sunshine Week, Friday, March 20, when the FOIA Project will announce the “winner.” Follow the project on Twitter at #foiafail and #sunshineweek.

The FOIA Project��is administered by the (TRAC), a joint research center of the and the . The project gives the public free access to information about every case in which government has been sued under the FOIA since Oct. 1, 1997—more than 27,000 documents from 8,600 district and appellate court cases. It’s updated daily, and searchable by plaintiff, defendant, location and date of suit, as well as other factors.

TRAC has recently added a tool that provides information on more than 900 federal district court judges.

For the first time, the public can learn which judges handle the most civil court cases, and how long it takes for judges to close those cases. Users can analyze caseload and time-to-closure data by type of case, such as civil rights, product liability and immigration. The custom-built data application then automatically compares the findings for each judge to other judges in the same district and to the nation as whole.

The data tool, developed by the (TRAC) at Syracuse University, officially launched Oct. 14. On the same day, TRAC released a report with findings mined from the tool, which include:

• Caseloads have jumped 28 percent in the past two decades while the number of federal judges has increased only 4 percent.
• The time from when a civil matter is filed to when it is scheduled for trial has grown by 63 percent in the last 20 years.
• There’s surprising variation in the caseloads of individual judges and for districts as a whole, and not always in ways that one might expect. For example, the rural Eastern District of Texas, which centers on the small city of Tyler, is the busiest district court per full-time judge in the country.

“Over and over again, history has shown us that a fair judiciary is essential for the maintenance of a functioning democracy,” says David Burnham, an associate research professor at the and TRAC’s co-director. “The Judge Information Center is dedicated to the belief that to assure this goal in the years ahead, the collection of independent, comprehensive and accurate information about the working of court system be expanded.”

The new data on civil matters is being added to TRAC’s existing Judge Information Center, which includes sentencing data for all federal criminal cases, as well tools to explore the practices of administrative immigration court judges. There has been considerable interest among lawyers, law schools, judges, public interest groups and others since the launch of the Judge Information Center’s criminal and immigration data service in 2012. Even the U.S. Justice Department subscribes.

The data behind the new tool comes from several sources, mixing publicly available data from the administrative office of the U.S. Courts with data TRAC has mined from the electronic court filing system known as PACER, as well as data obtained by TRAC from the Justice Department through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests and subsequent lawsuits.

“The work it takes to compile, structure and verify millions of records from disparate sources is considerable,” says TRAC Co-Director Susan Long, an associate professor at the . “We believe the results are worth it, with findings that provide researchers, journalists and lawyers unique insights into the least examined branch of government.”

The data tool’s top-level statistics can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection. Drill-down reports on each judge are available by subscription. TRAC employs a sliding scale based on an organization’s nonprofit status and size to make its data tools as accessible as possible.

Burnham and Long founded TRAC 25 years ago. It is one of the oldest independent organizations covering federal enforcement and federal judges. In addition to critical support from Syracuse University, TRAC has been funded by foundations including Carnegie, Ford, Knight, MacArthur, Rockefeller and the CS Fund.

For full details, view the report at: .

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.

For details, view the full report at: .

According to TRAC, if this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of convictions will be 28 for this fiscal year, down 12.5 percent over the past fiscal year when the number of convictions totaled 32.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.

In fiscal year (FY) 1986, almost nine out of 10 (89 percent) of such requests were declined. During the first nine months of FY 2010, only half were turned down.��The analysis of hundreds of thousands of case-by-case records also found that the total number of asylum requests has been falling, that a higher proportion of asylum seekers are now represented by counsel and that judge-to-judge disparities in denial rates remain a pervasive problem.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

To read this latest report, go to: . Also available are 253 separate reports covering individual immigration judges, updated through June 2010. These reports examine each judge’s asylum denial rate year-by-year, providing rankings and other comparisons with the denial rates of other judges. For judge-by-judge listings, visit .

Over the past five years, this report series has been primarily supported by SU, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the New York Times Company Foundation, Public Interest Projects and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

TRAC’s latest report on the Immigration Courts can be viewed at . Released with this special report is an update to TRAC’s Immigration Court Caseload Tool, which provides a way to obtain case backlogs and waiting times in each state, court and hearing location. This information is also available by nationality. For the Immigration Court Caseload Tool, visit: .

In the first nine months of FY 2010, ICE investigations resulted in the removal of 279,035 individuals compared to 254,763 in the same nine month period during the final year of the Bush administration.

For TRAC’s full report on these removals, visit .

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.

Overall, a total of 15,830 prosecutions were reported, representing a jump of 37 percent from the previous month. Increases were seen not only for immigration matters, but also for other categories: drugs, white color crime, organized crime, weapons and terrorism cases.

TRAC is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

For the latest information on immigration prosecutions and convictions so far in FY 2010, visit: . In addition to reports by program category, TRAC offers free reports on the enforcement activities of selected government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, DHS and DEA.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

TRAC’s latest report on the Immigration Courts can be viewed at .

Released with this special report is an update to TRAC’s Immigration Court Caseload Tool, which provides a way to obtain case backlogs and waiting times in each state, court and hearing location. This information is also available by nationality. For the Immigration Court Caseload Tool, visit .

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

The most recent available information shows that in January 2010 there were only 11 such prosecutions while in February there were 13. The data on the instances of terrorism prosecutions for the nation as a whole are compiled by the Department’s Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) on the basis of data regularly submitted to it by each of the 94 U.S. Attorney offices.��

The long, slow slump in these prosecutions during the last eight years contrasts starkly with what happened in the period immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks when there was an extraordinary ten-fold growth spurt in these matters.��

In explaining the sharp shifts, the report notes that increases and decreases in arrests or prosecutions in a particular criminal area often are not related to changes in the actual threat. Instead the shifts in official actions such as arrests or prosecutions are determined by the number of available investigators or the adoption of new enforcement policies.��

To read the full report, visit .

This sharp regional increase is in stark contrast with the national pattern where drug prosecutions for the rest of the country have been steadily declining for a number of years, with the first four months of FY 2010 down by 17 percent since FY 2008 and down 12 percent from last year.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

The drug enforcement surge in the Southwest varied among the five federal districts, with Arizona showing the sharpest growth and the prosecution rate in California South (San Diego) actually declining.

For this latest data, visit .

In addition to the most recent figures on drug prosecutions, TRAC continues to provide additional free reports on a wide range of current enforcement trends at , with information on prosecutions and�� convictions so far in FY 2010 in the areas of immigration, drugs, white collar crime, official corruption and more, including reports on the enforcement activities of selected government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, DHS and DEA.

is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

The report notes that the decline in audits of large corporations is surprising because 1) the highest levels of misreported tax dollars per auditor hour are found among the biggest business organizations and 2) since fiscal year (FY) 2005, Congress has provided the IRS with the funds it needs to hire an increasing number of revenue agents trained to handle these very complex returns.

One key TRAC finding is that for corporations with assets of $250 million or more, the IRS in the last five years has cut back on the number of audit hours by 33 percent. In FY 2005, the returns of 43 out of 100 of these large businesses were audited. In FY 2009, the audit rate had dropped to 25 out of 100. A key outcome is that more and more of the largest corporations are not being audited at all.

The full report is available at .

��is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.��

The annual report also includes TRAC’s “U.S. Code tool.” For prosecutions recommended by the IRS, the U.S. Code tool provides quick access to a list of the most frequently cited lead charges that eventually led to formal charges or convictions. Also available from this area is the complete text of each law and maps showing where in the country there was a resulting prosecution or conviction.

“Graphical Highlights” shows current national enforcement trends for corporate and individual audits, along with information about levies, liens and seizure activities. And TRAC’s newly updated “District Enforcement” section provides detailed maps and ranking tables that focus on referrals, prosecutions, convictions and other matters in each of the 90 federal judicial districts.

TRAC’s new annual report on the IRS can be viewed at . To go directly to the new research report on county taxpayer returns—adjusted gross income, wages and salaries, interest income, dividend income and exemptions claimed on individual tax returns—visit .