Judge Jeffrey T. Sprague

FY 2021 - 2026*, Baltimore Immigration Court

*data covers the first 9 months of fiscal year 2026

Published Aug 27, 2026

Jeffrey Sprague was appointed as an immigration judge to begin hearing cases in March 2026. Judge Sprague earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1999 from Virginia Military Institute and a Juris Doctor in 2006 from Louisiana State University. From February 2020 to February 2026, he served as an adjudications counsel and hearing officer with the Office of Chief Counsel, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Department of Transportation. During this time, from December 2021 to June 2022, he also served a cross-modal detail assignment with the Federal Aviation Administration as an enforcement attorney, where he litigated civil penalty claims against unruly airline passengers. From January 2018 to February 2020, he was a trial attorney with the Civil Division, Torts Branch, CSTL/Vaccine Litigation Section, Department of Justice. From August 2006 to January 2018, he was a staff attorney with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and he also served an appointment as an acting veteran’s law judge from January to March 2017. Prior to law school, Judge Sprague served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1999 to 2003, where he was a missile combat crew commander for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System (ICBM) at Minot AFB, North Dakota. Judge Sprague is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

Deciding Asylum Cases

Detailed data on decisions by Judge Sprague were examined for the period covering fiscal years 2021 through the first 9 months of 2026. During this period, court records show that Judge Sprague decided 138 asylum claims on their merits. Of these, he granted asylum for 14, granted 0 other types of relief, and denied relief to 124. Converted to percentage terms, Sprague denied 89.9 percent and granted 10.1 percent of asylum cases (including forms of relief other than asylum).

Figure 1 provides a comparison of Judge Sprague'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 Sprague's denial rate of 89.9 percent, Immigration Court judges across the country denied 62.9 percent of asylum claims during this same period. Judges at the Baltimore Immigration Court where Judge Sprague decided these cases denied asylum 55.7 percent of the time. See Figure 2.

Judge Sprague'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 Sprague, 13.8% 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 Sprague came from Honduras. Individuals from this country made up 18.8% of his caseload. Other nationalities in descending order of frequency appearing before Judge Sprague were: Guatemala (15.2%), El Salvador (13.8%), Haiti (12.3%), Nigeria (5.8%). 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 (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%).