Cleveland’s denial rate for asylum cases has surpassed the national average for years, according to Austin Kocher, an assistant professor and researcher at TRAC.

It was 72% in fiscal year 2015 and has increased since then, staying around 90% for the past three years, Kocher found.

As for why, Kocher said, “it’s complicated.”

“It’s really hard to say exactly why,” he said, but it likely has a lot to do with the makeup of the court’s judges and the types of cases they’re hearing.

“If (the docket) is made up of a lot of people who are from countries where it’s very difficult to get asylum or types of cases where the success rate is low, then that can drive the outcome,” Kocher said. “In the case of Cleveland, my sense is that the makeup of the court is driving a lot of this. … In the past four years, five years or so they’ve added additional judges that seem to reflect the disposition of the administration that hired them, the Trump administration, in terms of being very reluctant to grant asylum.”

In Detroit, the asylum denial rate is a much lower 60%, which Kocher attributed to a different cultural landscape in the northern city.

Ohio’s immigrants are diverse: farmworkers, African asylum-seekers, Central Americans, refugees and more. Detroit, on the other hand, has a clearer identity as a hub for Middle Eastern refugees, Kocher said.