Right to Counsel
Ninth Circuit Finds Court Has No Authority to Hear Lawsuit Seeking Access to Counsel for Children
In 2014, a legal challenge was mounted against the federal government for its failure to provide legal representation to indigent children in deportation proceedings. The case, F.L.B.. v. Lynch was brought by the American Immigration Council, American Civil Liberties Union, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Public Counsel, and K&L… Read More
Immigrants’ Access to Legal Representation Is Unequal and the Consequences Are Serious
Nationally, only 37 percent of all immigrants had legal representation, and only 14 percent of immigrants in detention had a lawyer. In a paper issued today, Access to Counsel in Immigration Court, Ingrid Eagly and Steven Shafer analyzed 1.2 million individual removal cases in immigration court between fiscal years… Read More
Thousands of Children Now Covered in Access to Counsel Lawsuit
Last week, a federal court certified a class in a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s failure to provide legal representation to children in deportation proceedings. Several thousand children are estimated to be members of the class. This lawsuit, F.L.B. v. Lynch, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Read More
District Court Holds Hearing in Case About Kids’ Right to Attorneys in Immigration Court
A federal district court in Seattle heard arguments in a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to ensure that all children in immigration court have legal representation. The case received a flurry of attention when press reports revealed that an immigration judge deposed in the case said he had successfully… Read More
Story of Unaccompanied Child Underscores Importance of Legal Representation Needed for All Refugee Children
Elvis Garcia is a migration counselor at the Catholic Charities Community Services of New York. He is also a former unaccompanied child who fled from his native Honduras in 2005 when he was 15 years old. Last week, Garcia and several others participated in a roundtable discussion sponsored by Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services to evaluate the response to the humanitarian situation at the southern U.S. border and highlight the recommendations regarding the treatment of children in their new report. During the roundtable, Garcia pointed to the lack of lawyers for kids as one of the biggest challenges confronting unaccompanied children. He said many children are eligible for asylum, yet lack the access to attorneys to navigate the system. Read More
The Washington Post Exposes Sorry State of Immigration Courts
This week, the Washington Post ran a front page article drawing attention to the fact that our nation’s immigration courts are operating in crisis mode. The immigration courts are so overcrowded that judges are forced to make split-second decisions regarding complex legal issues, calling into question whether the court system is fairly administering justice. The article featured a morning in the life of one immigration judge who had 26 cases to hear before lunchtime. That equates to an average of just seven minutes per case. Given the high stakes involved in deportation cases—which can range from permanent separation from family in the United States to being returned to a country where a person fears for his or her life—a system that is overburdened and under-resourced is simply unacceptable. Read More
New York City Pilots Free Legal Representation in Immigration Court
In criminal courts throughout the United States, the government provides defendants who cannot afford an attorney with a free public defender. In immigration courts, which are not part of the criminal court system, immigrants who are unable to hire a private attorney and cannot find a free legal service provider are forced to face off on their own against trained government attorneys. Individuals facing deportation had no legal representation in about 44% of the cases the immigration courts ruled on in 2012 – more than 126,000 cases in one year. But a new program in a New York City immigration court could change this system – for a limited number of indigent, detained immigrants, a pilot “public defender” program is providing free representation in immigration court. Read More
Hearing and Report Highlight Lack of Due Process in Immigration System
This week, Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware presided over a public hearing to discuss what so many of us know: the immigration courts are failing to provide a fair, efficient, and effective system of justice. Many of the concerns raised by Senator Coons, as well as some of the witnesses, during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values,” are discussed in more detail in a report issued by the American Immigration Council this week, Two Systems of Justice: How the Immigration System Falls Short of the Ideals of Justice. Read More
Shoddy Court Process Behind the Record Number of Deportations
The Obama Administration is on record for pursuing the toughest immigration enforcement policies in U.S. history, mostly evidenced by its record numbers of deportations. These numbers speak volumes: last year, nearly 400,000 people were deported from the United States. While these numbers are shockingly high and there has been much discussion about how these actions tear families and communities apart, there has also been an under-reporting of the unfair and often expedited process that leads to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people each year. In fact, two-thirds of the individuals removed are done so without ever seeing the inside of an immigration courtroom and are not accorded many other basic due process protections. Read More
Why Immigrants Should Have Access to Legal Counsel
U. S. immigration laws are incredibly complex, yet they provide only minimal due process protections for even the most vulnerable noncitizens. In criminal courts, defendants who cannot afford an attorney are provided one for free, but in immigration court, noncitizens do not receive the same protections. As a result, many immigrants facing deportation are forced to proceed on their own. Even noncitizens with serious mental disorders who cannot understand what is happening in court may be deported without ever speaking to an attorney. Although current laws and regulations provide some protections for people in immigration court who lack “mental competency,” they are insufficient and unclear. An immigration system that takes seriously the promise of due process and fair hearings must do better. Read More
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