Judge Elizabeth Kohler Maya

FY 2020 - 2025*, Baltimore Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Elizabeth Kohler Maya was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in November 2023. Judge Kohler Maya earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1995 from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a Juris Doctor in 2002 from the George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law. From 2011 to 2023, she was a practicing immigration attorney and managing partner at Bromberg, Kohler Maya & Petre PLLC. From 2003 to 2011, she practiced immigration law with the Law Offices of Richard S. Bromberg. From 2002 to 2003, she served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Glen E. Conrad of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Judge Kohler Maya is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and Virginia State Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Maya were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Maya decided 286 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 121, granted 11 other types of relief, and denied relief to 154. Converted to percentage terms, Maya denied 53.8 percent and granted 46.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Maya'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 Maya's denial rate of 53.8 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 Maya decided these cases denied asylum 51.8 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Maya'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 Maya, 5.2% 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 Maya came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 16.1% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Maya were: El Salvador (15.7%), India (8.4%), Guatemala (8.0%), Senegal (7.0%). 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%).