Anchoring and Asylum: How Ideology and Presidential Rhetoric Shape Decision Patterns in U.S. Immigration Courts

This study examines variation in asylum adjudication outcomes across U.S. immigration courts, where applicants with similar claims often face significantly different probabilities of receiving protection. These disparities raise important questions about how decisions are made within a system characterized by legal ambiguity, high caseloads, and institutional constraints. While existing scholarship has documented these inconsistencies, less attention has been given to the decision-making processes that produce them. In particular, the role of cognitive bias and political context in shaping asylum adjudication remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by examining how decision-making occurs within the institutional environment of immigration courts. Rather than attempting to isolate the effects of specific pieces of presidential rhetoric, this thesis takes a descriptive approach. Drawing on court-level data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse spanning fiscal years 2001–2024 and case-level data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review from 2006–2020, paired with linked voter registration records, the analysis identifies patterns in asylum denial rates across courts, judges, and time. The findings reveal persistent variation in asylum outcomes across courts, as well as a statistically and substantively significant relationship between Republican voter registration and the likelihood of denying an asylum claim relative to nonpartisan judges. These patterns suggest that adjudication is shaped not by a single identifiable influence, but by the institutional and cognitive conditions under which decisions are made. By developing a theoretical framework grounded in the anchoring heuristic, this study offers a new way of understanding how immigration judges navigate uncertainty and constraint. It also provides a foundation for interpreting variation in asylum adjudication and identifies a pathway for future research on the role of political signaling in judicial decision-making.