WASHINGTON (KCBS) -- A refugee’s chance of winning asylum in the United States involves a good deal of luck, according to a new study by three law professers.
The professors found that many factors contributed to the outcome of asylum cases, including the location of the court, the background of the judge, and the nationality of the applicant.
For example, a person who fled China has a 76 percent chance of winning their asylum case in the Orlando immigration court, but only a 7 percent chance in Atlanta.
Professor Philip Schrag of Georgetown University Law Center said the results are "very disturbing", especially because "these decision can mean life or death" for the applicant.
The study was conducted by Schrag, Georgetown colleague Andrew Schoenholtz and Temple University Beasley School of Law professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales. It will be published in the Stanford Law Review in November.
The authors titled their study "Refugee Roulette" because the outcome of a case appears to depend to a great extent on the personality, background and prior experience of the adjudicator, rather than the merits of the claim.
They analyzed 140,000 decisions by immigration judges, including those cases from the 15 countries that have produced the most asylum seekers in recent years, among them China, Haiti, Colombia, Albania and Russia.
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KCBS' Rebecca Corral reports
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