Judge Davene Walker

FY 2020 - 2025*, Hyattsville Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Davené D. Walker was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in November 2023. Judge Walker earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2002 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Juris Doctor in 2005 from the University of Virginia School of Law. From 2015 to 2023, she served as a trial attorney and then a senior attorney with the Environment and Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice. From 2012 to 2015, she served as an assistant city attorney for the City of Atlanta. From 2008 to 2012, she was a litigator at Smith Gambrell & Russell in Atlanta. From 2005 to 2008, she was an associate at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Atlanta. In 2008, she also served as a temporary judicial law clerk for the Honorable Clarence Cooper, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Judge Walker is a member of the State Bar of Georgia.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Walker were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Walker decided 293 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 140, granted 1 other types of relief, and denied relief to 152. Converted to percentage terms, Walker denied 51.9 percent and granted 48.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Walker'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 Walker's denial rate of 51.9 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Hyattsville Immigration Court where Judge Walker decided these cases denied asylum 48.3 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Walker'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 Walker, 7.5% 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 Walker came from Cameroon. Individuals from this country made up 16.4% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Walker were: Honduras (11.9%), El Salvador (10.6%), Ethiopia (9.9%), Peru (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%).