IJ - Immigration Judges at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

Cases filed - includes both new and reopened applications.

Denied - includes applications rejected under the one-year filing deadline.

Data Source: RAPS

• Nationals of Haiti submitted the most asylum applications in February 2004, followed by Colombia, and People's Republic of China.

• About 84 percent of the pending caseload involves aliens whose cases may be adjudicated under one of the provisions of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA) or the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998 (HRIFA) rather than through an asylum process. The pending caseload excluding those special-group cases is approximately 38,800 cases.

• The substantial growth in cases otherwise closed is mostly attributable to the large number of cases adjudicated under NACARA.