Dallas Immigration Court: Information Guide

Dallas Immigration Court Overview

The Dallas Immigration Court is located in Dallas, Texas.  It resolves deportation cases of persons residing in North Texas.  The court is one of 13 immigration courts in the State of Texas.  The immigration court in Dallas consists of 9 immigration judges.

The Dallas, Texas immigration court hears many cases in-person, but also hears cases of people held at a number of jails in other counties in Texas:

• Big Spring Correctional Center
• Bluebonnet Detention Center
• Eden Correctional Center
• Johnson County Jail
• David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center
• Prairieland Detention Center
• Giles W. Dalby Correctional Institution

Below, you can find out more about contacting the Dallas Immigration Court, the Dallas immigration judges, getting a bond, processing time, and more.

Dallas Immigration Court Contact Information

Address

The Dallas Immigration Court is located at:

1100 Commerce Street, Suite 1060
Dallas, Texas 75242

Phone

214-767-1814

This is the best number to use to contact the immigration court clerks and legal assistants for immigration judges.

If you want to learn how to check your immigration court date, you can learn more here.

Hours

The court is open from 8am to 5pm.  But you can only file documents there from 8am-12pm and 12:30pm-4pm.

Getting to the Dallas Immigration Court

The court is located in Downtown Dallas, on the 10th Floor of the Earle Cabell Federal Building.  Because it’s downtown, you have easy access from several highways.  To get there you can take several exits off of I-30 and go north, or you can take Woodall Rogers Freeway and go east.

As you walk down Commerce Street, you’ll find the court next to a McDonald’s and just South of the Civic Garden.

Fortunately, you can take public transportation to get to the Dallas court. You can take the DART train, and get off at the Akard or the West End stops.  Or you can take the DART bus.

What the court looks like

From the front, the court looks like this:

The back of the court building looks like this:

Immigration Judges in Dallas

There are currently 10 immigration judges at the Dallas TX Immigration Court.  The Assistant Chief Immigration Judge is Judge E. Mark Barcus.

Here is a full list of immigration judges:

• Judge Xiomara Davis-Gumbs
• Judge Jason D. Ferguson
• Judge Glen R. Hines
• Judge R. Wayne Kimball
• Judge James A. Nugent
• Judge Richard R. Ozmun
• Judge Virginia Perez-Guzman
• Judge Deitrich H. Sims
• Judge Christopher J. Theilemann

Of these judges, Judge Sims has highest asylum denial rate (96.8%), and Judge Ozmun has the second highest denial rate (94%).  IJ Perez-Guzman has the lowest denial rate (72.1%) and the highest grant rate(27.9%).

Getting a Bond at the Dallas Immigration Court

To apply for an immigration bond you will need to submit the following form, found here.

In the past 21 years, the immigration court in Dallas has heard 17,850 bond cases.  Of these, it’s granted 5,868 and denied 11,982.  That means it’s granted bonds in roughly 32% of the cases heard.  Most of the bond hearings in Dallas were for Mexican Nationals.  In Mexican bond cases, 3,218 bonds were granted out of 9,097 cases.  For nationals of El Salvador, 521 bonds were granted in 1,986 bond hearings.

 

Asylum Decisions in Dallas

Asylum Denial Rates in Dallas

In the past 20 years, the immigration court in Dallas has considered 6,903 cases.  It has denied asylum in 5,035 cases, and granted it in only 1,688 cases.  This means that the immigration court denies asylum 72% of the time.  Compared to immigration courts in New York and Miami, the Dallas court’s asylum approval rate is much lower.

Nationalities

The largest percentage of asylum seekers before the Dallas court are from El Salvador.  The court has heard 1,412 El Salvadoran cases in the past 20 years.  Honduran cases come in second, with the court hearing 724 such cases.  In third place, are asylum seekers from Mexico, who account for 467 of the court’s asylum case load.

 

 

Backlog and Wait Time in Dallas

The Dallas, Texas immigration court has a whopping 67,051 pending cases.  This is by far the largest backlog among immigration courts in Texas.  On average, the court takes 889 days to resolve a case.  Compared to other immigration courts in Texas, the average waiting time is somewhere in the middle.  For example, the Houston immigration court takes an average of 1,205 days to complete a case.

Free Lawyers for the Dallas Immigration Court

There are several organizations that provide free legal help to immigrants at the Dallas Texas Immigration Court.  (If you’re interested in learning more about hiring a lawyer for immigration court, you can visit our immigration court guide.)

Catholic Charities of Dallas

Catholic Charities of Dallas helps aliens in asylum matters, but does not represent detainees at the Big Spring Facility or in Oklahoma.

9461 LBJ Freeway, Suite 100
Dallas, Texas 75243
(214)634-7182

Baptist Immigration Center

This organization does not take cases relating to drugs or child abuse, and sometimes helps with cancellation of removal matters.

507 Titus Street
McKinney, Texas 76069
(972)562-4561

Human Rights Initiative of North Texas

The Human Rights Initiative, or HRI only represents persons at the Dallas court, and does not represent detained individuals.  HRI focuses on helping with asylum and juvenile cases.

2801 Swiss Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75204
(214) 855-0520