Judge Danielle H. Garten

FY 2020 - 2025*, Houston - Greenspoint Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Danielle H. Garten was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in December 2022. Judge Garten earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2002 from Quinnipiac University and a Juris Doctor in 2005 from Touro College-Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center. From 2016 to 2022, she served as an assistant chief counsel, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in El Paso, Texas. During that time, she served as a special assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas-El Paso Division. From 2011 to 2016, she was an associate attorney at Marks, O’Neill, O’Brien, Doherty & Kelly, P.C. in New York. From 2009 to 2011, she served as an information, review, and release analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. From 2008 to 2009, she was an associate attorney at Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry, LLP in New York. From 2006 to 2008, she was an associate attorney at Subin Associates LLP in New York. Judge Garten is a member of the State of Connecticut Bar and New York State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Garten were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Garten decided 188 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 0, granted 5 other types of relief, and denied relief to 183. Converted to percentage terms, Garten denied 97.3 percent and granted 2.7 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Garten'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 Garten's denial rate of 97.3 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Houston - Greenspoint Immigration Court where Judge Garten decided these cases denied asylum 90.2 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Garten'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 Garten, 11.7% 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 Garten came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 28.7% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Garten were: Mexico (14.9%), Venezuela (12.2%), Guatemala (10.1%), Colombia (9.0%). 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%).