Early Predictability of Asylum Court Decisions

Early Predictability of Asylum Court Decisions with M. Dunn and L. Sagun In the United States, foreign nationals who fear persecution in their home country can apply for asylum under the Refugee Act of 1980. Unfortunately, over the past decade, legal scholarship has uncovered significant disparities in asylum adjudication by judge, by region of the United States in which the application is filed, and by the applicant’s nationality. These disparities raise concerns about whether applicants are receiving equal treatment before the law. Using machine learning to predict judges’ decisions, we document another concern that may violate our notions of justice: significant variation among the degree of predictability of judges at the time the case is assigned to a judge. Highly predictable judges are those who almost always grant or deny asylum. Our predictive model corroborates prior work as the final outcome of the case is overwhelmingly driven by the adjudicating judge and the applicant’s nationality. We are able to predict the final outcome of a case with 80% accuracy at the time the case opens. Additionally, this study shows that highly predictable judges tend to make use of fewer hearing sessions before making their decision. The contribution of this study is twofold. First, early prediction of a case with 80% accuracy could assist asylum seeker in their process of application. Secondly, by demonstrating the variation of predictability among the judges, based solely on a minimal subset of case information, this study raises questions about whether the specifics of each case are being given their due weight in asylum adjudications

Collateral Damage: When Should the Determinations of Administrative Adjudications Have Collateral Estoppel Effect in Subsequent Adjudications?

Collateral estoppel is an equitable doctrine under which a court gives issue-preclusive effect to findings of fact or law made in previous proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has recently held that under certain circumstances, the determinations of administrative adjudications have collateral estoppel effect in federal court. The Court, however, did not address under which circumstances the determinations of administrative adjudications should have collateral estoppel effect in subsequent administrative adjudications. There has been little clear and consistent reasoning in lower federal courts about when collateral estoppel should apply in administrative adjudications, and administrative agencies vary widely in their application of collateral estoppel when conducting adjudications. This Note argues that neither the balancing test used to apply collateral estoppel in federal court nor the more formalistic per se rules proposed by some commentators are appropriate when applying collateral estoppel between administrative adjudications. Instead, courts should defer to agencies, granting them wide discretion to recognize or not recognize the collateral estoppel effect of prior administrative adjudications

Judicial Analytics and the Great Transformation of American Law

Predictive judicial analytics holds the promise of increasing efficiency and fairness of law. Judicial analytics can assess extra-legal factors that influence decisions. Behavioral anomalies in judicial decision-making offer an intuitive understanding of feature relevance, which can then be used for debiasing the law. A conceptual distinction between inter-judge disparities in predictions and interjudge disparities in prediction accuracy suggests another normatively relevant criterion with regards to fairness. Predictive analytics can also be used in the first step of causal inference, where the features employed in the first step are exogenous to the case. Machine learning thus offers an approach to assess bias in the law and evaluate theories about the potential consequences of legal change

Deference to the Plaintiff in Forum Non Conveniens Cases

This Note analyzes several cases in an effort to understand why, based on each case’s unique circumstances, the plaintiff’s choice of forum received a particular level of deference. This Note then produces a synthesized list of factors that alter the level of deference a plaintiff’s choice of forum receives under forum non conveniens analysis. An understanding of these factors provides increased predictability as to when a plaintiff’s choice of forum might receive heightened deference under this common law doctrine

Constraint through Delegation: The Case of Executive Control over Immigration Policy

This Article proposes recalibrating the separation of powers between the political branches in the context of their regulation of immigration law\u27s core questions: how many and what types of immigrants to admit to the United States. Whereas Congress holds a virtual monopoly over formal decisionmaking, the executive branch makes de facto admissions decisions using its discretionary enforcement power. As a result of this structure, stasis and excessive prosecutorial discretion characterize the regime, particularly with respect to labor migration. Both of these features exacerbate pathologies associated with illegal immigration and call for a structural response. This Article contends that Congress should create an executive branch agency, marked by indicia of independence, to set visa policy-an avenue increasingly contemplated by reformers. Though it may seem counterintuitive, delegation of greater authority can help constrain executive power by substituting a transparent process, subject to monitoring, for decisionmaking that occurs hidden from view. Delegation can also help overcome limitations in the legislative process that contribute to the current regime\u27s dysfunction, making immigration policy more efficient and effective. The Refugee Act of 1980 provides a parallel that is helpful in thinking through what it would mean to delegate ex ante admissions power to the executive

Vietnamese Women and Children Refugees in Hong Kong: An Argument against Arbitrary Detention

Anteckningar från Sundre, Gotland sydligaste socken. Onsdag 11 april 2012 Rivet, en smal udde av grus. Stark vind, öppen horisont. Vatten på nära nog alla håll. Här, längst ut, drabbades jag av fasa när havet ville döda mig, sluka min kropp. Letade efter gravarna men fann inget. Gick upp till Arendt i fyren. --- Mitt examensprojekt är min promenad tillsammans med historia, tempo, minne, tröghet, förflyttningar och förändringar, ruiner, myter samt högst personliga reflektioner. Det finns platser man verkligen tycker om, som man älskar. Jag vet flera platser som jag älskar att vara på, det här är en av dem. Få stannar till här, det är ett ställe man passerar. Jag vill vara ensam här. Vid mina besök, som på senare tid under projektets gång har varit mycket riktade, blir jag extremt fokuserad på platsen och bara platsen. Också som att kliva ur tjockan.Notes from the parish of Sundre, at the very south of Gotland. Wednesday April 11, 2012 Rivet, a small cpe of gravel. Strong wind, open horizon. Water in almost all directions. Here, at the nab, fright hit me when the sea wanted to liquidate me, swallow my body. Searched for the tombs but found nothing. Visited Arendt in the lighthouse. --- My degree project is my promenade together with history, tempo, memory, inertia, movements, ruins, myths and my very personal reflections. There are places you really like, that you love. There are several places that I love to be at, this is one of them. Few people halt here, this is a place you pass. I want to be alone here. At my visits, that during the project became more and more addressed, I become extremely focused at the place and the place only. Like stepping out of the mist

Asylum Policy in the West: Past Trends, Future Possibilities

asylum, deterrence, welfare, Western states

Can Machine Learning Help Predict the Outcome of Asylum Adjudications?

In this study, we analyzed 492,903 asylum hearings from 336 different hearing locations, rendered by 441 unique judges over a thirty-two year period from 1981-2013. We define the problem of asylum adjudication prediction as a binary classification task, and using the random forest method developed by Breiman [2], we predict twenty-seven years of refugee decisions. Using only data available up to the decision date, our model correctly classifies 82 percent of all refugee cases by 2013. Our empirical analysis suggests that decision makers exhibit a fair degree of autocorrelation in their rulings, and extraneous factors such as, news and the local weather may be impacting the fate of an asylum seeker. Surprisingly, granting asylum is predominantly driven by trend features and judicial characteristics- features that may seem unfair- and roughly one third-driven by case information, news events, and court information

Can Machine Learning Help Predict the Outcome of Asylum Adjudications?

In this study, we analyzed 492,903 asylum hearings from 336 different hearing locations, rendered by 441 unique judges over a thirty-two year period from 1981-2013. We define the problem of asylum adjudication prediction as a binary classification task, and using the random forest method developed by Breiman [2], we predict twenty-seven years of refugee decisions. Using only data available up to the decision date, our model correctly classifies 82 percent of all refugee cases by 2013. Our empirical analysis suggests that decision makers exhibit a fair degree of autocorrelation in their rulings, and extraneous factors such as, news and the local weather may be impacting the fate of an asylum seeker. Surprisingly, granting asylum is predominantly driven by trend features and judicial characteristics- features that may seem unfair- and roughly one third-driven by case information, news events, and court information