Archive • Date 2026-09-22 • Filed 2026-09-22T13:01:04Z • Case SH-20260922-001 • Severity 3/5
Credibility Finding Recast as Roulette
Based on: Immigration Roulette: Husband Granted Asylum, Wife Locked Up Awaiting Deportation • The Intercept • 2026-09-21T19:36:03Z
Period: September 21, 2026. School: opposition narrative with a wedding photograph. Technique: two hearings recast as a carnival wheel. Provenance: The Intercept (four prior citations on file, most recently September 17). Condition: the credibility finding survives in the body. The headline has already spent it. Hannaneh Alikaram went before Judge Jennifer A. May on July 2, 2025. May found her not credible, citing inconsistencies, and wrote that she saw no independent evidence the respondent would likely be tortured in Iran. Six days later Judge Nimmo Bhagat granted her husband asylum. The Intercept calls this immigration roulette and a cruel new form of family separation. TRAC has logged 90-point swings among immigration judges for years, including under the last administration. Bhagat, the lucky number, denies 80.9 percent of asylum cases. The article printed May's 91.8 percent denial rate and left Bhagat's rate in the drawer. Two records, two findings, one wheel. Verdict: a credibility ruling wearing a carnival costume. Note: The wheel has asked to be recused from future family-separation exhibits.
Findings
- On July 2, 2025, Judge Jennifer A. May found Alikaram not credible, citing inconsistencies in church attendance and arrest details.
- May wrote there is "no independent evidence to show that the respondent would likely be tortured in Iran."
- TRAC records Judge Nimmo Bhagat denying 80.9 percent of 1,027 asylum claims, then granting Azizi six days later.
- TRAC's November 2025 series shows San Francisco grant rates ranging from 97.1 percent to 4.8 percent.
Records requested
- Written decisions of Judges May and Bhagat, exhibited side by side, identifying which facts in the two records actually diverged.
- Judge Bhagat's asylum grant and denial rates for the same TRAC window the article published for Judge May.
- The Board of Immigration Appeals opinion denying Alikaram's appeal, quoted rather than merely dated.
Receipts
Every claim below was re-verified against the linked page before filing.
- Judge May found no independent evidence Alikaram would likely be tortured in Iran ("I find there is no independent evidence to show that the respondent would likely be tortured in Iran")
- Judge Bhagat denied 80.9 percent of asylum cases ("Bhagat denied 80.9 percent and granted 19.1 percent of asylum cases")
- Immigration judge asylum grant rates vary by more than 90 points in one court ("the range between the judge with the highest grant rate (97.1%) and the lowest grant rate (4.8%)")
Hypocrisy: The piece published Judge May's 91.8 percent denial rate as proof of a stacked deck, then treated Judge Bhagat's grant as inexplicable luck while leaving his 80.9 percent denial rate offstage.
Recommended sentence
The Intercept shall file Form IJ-2, Comparative Adjudication Exhibit, attaching both judges' written decisions and both judges' six-year grant rates before any future use of the word roulette, and shall serve 90 days of probation in the Department of Headline Recalibration.