Judge Stephen R. Stewart

FY 2020 - 2025*, Charlotte Immigration Court

*data covers the first 11 months of fiscal year 2025

Published Nov 7, 2025

Stephen R. Stewart was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in November 2024. Judge Stewart earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1990 from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota; a Juris Doctor in 1994 from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale; and a Master of Law in 2006 from The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, U.S. Army, in Charlottesville, Virginia. From 1995 to 2023, he served on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps as a prosecutor, operational and international law attorney, staff judge advocate (general counsel), professor of law, policy counsel, special counsel, civil litigation attorney, officer-in-charge, executive officer, chief of staff, and senior appellate military judge, in the following locations: Camp Pendleton, California; Okinawa, Japan; Dili, East Timor; Miami; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Charlottesville, Virginia; Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; Helmand Province, Afghanistan; Newport, Rhode Island; and Washington, D.C. Additionally, Judge Stewart deployed in support of the peacekeeping operation in East Timor, United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), in 1999; the peace enforcement operation in Haiti in 2004 (Operation Secure Tomorrow); and combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011 (Operation Enduring Freedom). From 2023 to 2024, he was a civilian attorney for the U.S. Coast Guard as a legislative counsel. Judge Stewart is a member of the State Bar of Georgia.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Stewart were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2020 through the first 11 months of 2025. During this period, court records show that Judge Stewart decided 119 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 9, granted 1 other types of relief, and denied relief to 109. Converted to percentage terms, Stewart denied 91.6 percent and granted 8.4 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Stewart'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 Stewart's denial rate of 91.6 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 58.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Charlotte Immigration Court where Judge Stewart decided these cases denied asylum 85.8 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Stewart'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 Stewart, 2.5% 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 Stewart came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 34.5% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Stewart were: Brazil (15.1%), Venezuela (13.4%), Mexico (12.6%), Guatemala (7.6%). 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%).