Judge Irma Diaz

FY 2020 - 2025*, Hyattsville Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Irma Diaz was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in November 2024. Judge Diaz earned a Bachelor of Science in 2004 from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and a Juris Doctor in 2013 from Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law in White Plains, New York. From 2022 to 2024, she served as an assistant chief counsel with the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Los Fresnos, Texas. From 2016 to 2022, she was an immigration attorney, and in 2019 became a partner, at the Law Firm of Anayancy Housman (formerly known as Housman & Diaz). From 2014 to 2016, she was an immigration attorney at the Westchester Hispanic Coalition, a nonprofit organization (now part of Make the Road New York). Judge Diaz is a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves, having joined as a direct commission officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in June 2015. From 2015 to 2017, she provided legal assistance with the 4th Legal Operations Detachment in Fort Dix, New Jersey, and from 2017 to 2023, she served as a trial defense counsel with the 16th Legal Operations Detachment in Hamilton, New York. Judge Diaz is a member of the New Jersey State Bar, New York State Bar, and State Bar of Texas.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Diaz were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Diaz decided 230 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 59, granted 1 other types of relief, and denied relief to 170. Converted to percentage terms, Diaz denied 73.9 percent and granted 26.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Diaz'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 Diaz's denial rate of 73.9 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 Diaz decided these cases denied asylum 48.3 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Diaz'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 Diaz, 12.2% 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 Diaz came from El Salvador. Individuals from this country made up 20.4% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Diaz were: Honduras (11.7%), Cameroon (10.9%), Guatemala (10.4%), Nicaragua (10.4%). 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%).