Judge Hugo R. Martinez

FY 2020 - 2025*, Dallas Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Hugo R. Martinez to begin hearing cases in October2018. Judge Martinez earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2001 from Texas Wesleyan University and aJuris Doctor in 2004 from Texas A&M University School of Law. From 2010 to 2018, he servedas an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas inCorpus Christi, Texas. From 2005 to 2010 he was assistant district attorney for the TarrantCounty District Attorney’s Office in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2004, he was a law clerk with theReina, Bates & Kowaski Immigration Law Group in Dallas. Judge Martinez is a member of theState Bar of Texas.Judge Martinez is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Martinez were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Martinez decided 250 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 15, granted 2 other types of relief, and denied relief to 233. Converted to percentage terms, Martinez denied 93.2 percent and granted 6.8 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Martinez's denial rate each fiscal year over this recent period. (Rates for years with less than 25 decisions are not shown.)

Nationwide Comparisons

Compared to Judge Martinez's denial rate of 93.2 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Dallas Immigration Court where Judge Martinez decided these cases denied asylum 73 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Martinez's asylum grant and denial rates are compared with other judges serving on the same court in this table. Note that when an Immigration Judge serves on more than one court during the same period, separate Immigration Judge reports are created for any Court in which the judge rendered at least 100 asylum decisions.

Why Do Denial Rates Vary Among Judges?

Although denial rates are shaped by each Judge's judicial philosophy, denial rates are also shaped by other factors, such as the types of cases on the Judge's docket, the detained status of immigrant respondents, current immigration policies, and other factors beyond an individual Judge's control. For example, TRAC has previously found that legal representation and the nationality of the asylum seeker are just two factors that appear to impact asylum decision outcomes.

The composition of cases may differ significantly between Immigration Courts in the country. Within a single Court when cases are randomly assigned to judges sitting on that Court, each Judge should have roughly a similar composition of cases given a sufficient number of asylum cases. Then variations in asylum decisions among Judges on the same Immigration Court would appear to reflect, at least in part, the judicial philosophy that the Judge brings to the bench. However, if judges within a Court are assigned to specialized dockets or hearing locations, then case compositions are likely to continue to differ and can contribute to differences in asylum denial rates.

Representation

When asylum seekers are not represented by an attorney, almost all of them (77%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Martinez, 11.2% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 17.1% of asylum seekers are not represented.

Nationality

Asylum seekers are a diverse group. Over one hundred different nationalities had at least one hundred individuals claiming asylum decided during this period. As might be expected, immigration courts located in different parts of the country tend to have proportionately larger shares from some countries than from others. And, given the required legal grounds for a successful asylum claim, asylum seekers from some nations tend to be more successful than others.

The largest group of asylum seekers appearing before Judge Martinez came from Venezuela. Individuals from this country made up 20.8% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Martinez were: Honduras (20.4%), El Salvador (16.0%), Mexico (10.0%), Guatemala (5.6%). See Figure 4.

In the nation as a whole during this same period, major nationalities of asylum seekers, in descending order of frequency, were Honduras (11.2%), Guatemala (11.2%), El Salvador (10.9%), Mexico (8.2%), China (5.2%), Venezuela (5.2%), India (5.1%), Ecuador (4.5%), Nicaragua (4.4%), Colombia (4.4%), Brazil (3.1%), Russia (3.1%), Cuba (2.8%).