Judge Joseph Kassell

FY 2020 - 2025*, Baltimore Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Joseph S. Kassell was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in October 2022. Judge Kassell earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2008 from the College of New Jersey and a Juris Doctorate in 2011 from Rutgers Law School. From 2021 to 2022, he served as a senior legal advisor to the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice. From 2021 to 2015, he was an attorney advisor with the BIA. From 2013 to 2015, he served as a judicial law clerk with the BIA, entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. From 2011 to 2013, he served as a judicial law clerk at the Eloy Immigration Court, entering on duty through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Judge Kassell is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Kassell were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Kassell decided 241 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 23, granted 7 other types of relief, and denied relief to 211. Converted to percentage terms, Kassell denied 87.6 percent and granted 12.4 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Kassell'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 Kassell's denial rate of 87.6 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Baltimore Immigration Court where Judge Kassell decided these cases denied asylum 51.8 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Kassell'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 Kassell, 7.1% 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 Kassell came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 19.1% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Kassell were: El Salvador (14.1%), Peru (8.7%), Guatemala (8.3%), Ecuador (7.1%). 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%).