Immigrants petitioning for asylum in New York are more likely to obtain a favorable ruling there than in Miami, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The report by the GAO, an independent agency that serves Congress, identifies a series of disparities in asylum approvals, such as:

• The location where the asylum petition is submitted. A petition submitted in San Francisco is 12 times more likely to obtain a favorable ruling from the courts than one submitted in Atlanta.

The greatest number of asylum petitions are submitted in New York, where the courts are 420 times more likely to approve asylum than in the rest of the country.

• Petitioners that have legal assistance double their chances of being approved, compared with those that do not hire an attorney.

• Petitioners who have been detained are more likely to obtain approval.

• The gender of the presiding judge is also a factor. Male judges are 60 percent more likely to approve asylum petitions than their female counterparts.

''It is very disheartening that the approval of an asylum petition depends on factors that don't have anything to do with the merit of the case, but rather with the judge and the location of the court,'' said David Abraham, a law professor and immigration expert from the University of Miami.

According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an independent organization at the University of Syracuse in New York that that collects, analyzes and distributes information about federal government activities, the average of asylum approvals vary depending on the city in which the petitions are filed.

The national average of asylum petitions that were denied during the period 2002-07 was 58.8 percent. The average during the same period in Miami was 78.5 percent and 38.3 percent in New York.

Even more startling were the difference in approval rates by individual immigration judges.

Clearinghouse records showed that in Miami, Judge Sandra Coleman denied 21.3 percent of asylum petitions brought before her between 2002 and 2007, while her colleague, Judge Mark Metcalf, denied 89.7 percent.

''According to this data, in Miami the average for denials of asylum is higher than the national average and depends on the judge that hears the case, which is a great injustice,'' said Miami immigration attorney Jorge Rivera.

In order to resolve the discrepancies, the GAO report recommended that the Executive Office for Immigration Review, part of the Justice Department, ``identify the judges that need training.''

''Our immigration court system is not independent, and is not subject to supervision, which has resulted in the selection of judges for political reasons,'' said Kerri Sherlock, adjunct director of the Washington-based American Immigration Lawyers Association.

UM's Abraham said the appointment of immigration judges has become overly ``politicized.''

''Those that are looking for a safe refuge in our country should be treated with the same consistency and justice if they apply in Kansas or in California. The result should be the same,'' said Sherlock.

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