Judge Danny Razo

FY 2020 - 2025*, El Paso Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Danny Razo was appointed as an Immigration Judge to begin hearing cases in October 2022. Judge Razo earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2000 from the University of Texas at El Paso, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence in 2003 from Texas Tech University School of Law. From 2007 to 2022, he was in private practice in El Paso, Texas. From 2004 to 2007, he served as a staff attorney at a local nonprofit in El Paso. Judge Razo is a member of the State Bar of Arizona and State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Razo were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Razo decided 162 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 52, granted 4 other types of relief, and denied relief to 106. Converted to percentage terms, Razo denied 65.4 percent and granted 34.6 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Razo'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 Razo's denial rate of 65.4 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the El Paso Immigration Court where Judge Razo decided these cases denied asylum 63.4 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Razo'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 Razo, 21% 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 Razo came from Venezuela. Individuals from this country made up 27.2% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Razo were: Cuba (16.7%), Colombia (15.4%), Mexico (8.6%), Nicaragua (8.0%). 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%).