Judge Dimple Gupta

FY 2021 - 2026*, Annandale Immigration Court

*data covers the first 9 months of fiscal year 2026

Published Aug 27, 2026

Dimple Gupta was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in March 2026. Judge Gupta earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1998 from the University of Chicago and a Juris Doctor in 2001 from Harvard Law School. From April 2025 to January 2026, she was the deputy general counsel at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill. From January 2020 to April 2025, she served as an attorney with the Office of General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency. From April 2019 to January 2020, she served as the senior counsel to the director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice. From August 2001 to January 2020, she served in the following positions: general counsel to U.S. Senator Pat Toomey; chief counsel for constitutional law at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee; counsel to the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division at DOJ; attorney in the appellate law group at the Securities and Exchange Commission; attorney at Covington & Burling; and judicial law clerk for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Gupta is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and Massachusetts Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Gupta were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2021 through the first 9 months of 2026. During this period, court records show that Judge Gupta decided 174 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, she granted asylum for 16, granted 0 other types of relief, and denied relief to 158. Converted to percentage terms, Gupta denied 90.8 percent and granted 9.2 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Gupta'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 Gupta's denial rate of 90.8 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 62.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Annandale Immigration Court where Judge Gupta decided these cases denied asylum 79.6 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Gupta'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 (74%) are denied asylum. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of represented asylum seekers are successful. In the case of Judge Gupta, 14.4% were not represented by an attorney. See Figure 3. For the nation as a whole, about 18.8% 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 Gupta came from Bolivia. Individuals from this country made up 19.0% of her caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Gupta were: Honduras (16.7%), El Salvador (13.8%), Venezuela (9.2%), Colombia (8.6%). 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 (10.1%), Guatemala (9.4%), Mexico (9.1%), El Salvador (8.7%), Venezuela (6.8%), Colombia (5.6%), Ecuador (5.3%), Nicaragua (4.8%), India (4.7%), China (4.7%), Russia (3.3%), Brazil (3.2%), Peru (2.9%).