Judge George R. Najjar

FY 2020 - 2025*, San Diego Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

George R. Najjar was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in August 2023. Judge Najjar earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor in 1990 from California Western School of Law. From 1993 to 2023, he was in private practice in San Diego, California. During this time, from 2000 to 2023, he served as a judge pro tempore in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, and from 1997 to 2023, he served as an arbitrator for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. Judge Najjar is a member of the State Bar of California.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Najjar were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Najjar decided 116 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 56, granted 3 other types of relief, and denied relief to 57. Converted to percentage terms, Najjar denied 49.1 percent and granted 50.9 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Najjar'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 Najjar's denial rate of 49.1 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the San Diego Immigration Court where Judge Najjar decided these cases denied asylum 57.1 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Najjar'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 Najjar, 4.3% 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 Najjar came from Guatemala. Individuals from this country made up 19.0% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Najjar were: Mexico (11.2%), Russia (11.2%), Colombia (7.8%), Venezuela (7.8%). 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%).