Slim Chances in Immigration Court

Any person accused of a crime, and brought before a U.S. court is provided an attorney free of cost if the defendant cannot meet the expense of their own attorney—any person that is not an illegal immigrant. Of approximately 314,000 people who went to trial in immigration court last year, two-thirds represented themselves or went through pro se.

Lack of proper representation in immigration court is likely to account for unfair deportations and slow trial processes. Immigrants are told by judges that they must pay for an attorney or represent themselves, with little to no knowledge of how to find their way through immigration law. Donald Kerwin, Executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Inc., stated, “How do they possibly pick out of everything that’s happened to them in their lives the legally significant points? You have to know the legal standards to do that.”

Immigration laws and border control have been stepped up recently, and according to Kerwin, even children are being called into court now without legal representation. Many immigrants have been transferred to rural detention centers where attorneys are especially difficult to find, much less pay for.

Immigrant Roxana Velasco recently experienced this dilemma after she was apprehended while attempting to cross the border at the Rio Grande to re-unite with her husband. Velasco made calls to three different attorneys, two of which were asking $10,000 to represent her, and one who said she could not help. Roxana Velasco was forced to go into court alone with little likeliness of eligibility to remain in the country.

Many immigration lawyers say that most immigrants have no legal right to stay in the country, such as someone to sponsor their visa, or claim to asylum. However, Kerwin and other advocates believe that immigrants need an attorney to explain their options to them and to help them build a case if they may qualify for a sponsored visa or claim to asylum. The Catholic Legal Immigration Network revealed that government data proved that immigrants with legal representation were much more likely to win their cases, than those without.

Lawyers have gained little by arguing violation due process for immigrants; so many advocates are emphasizing that legal representation for all immigrants will save the government money by speeding up the trial procedure.

As for the pro bono lawyers and associations handling such cases, Alberto M. Benitez, director of the George Washington University Immigration Law Clinic, says that they are constantly swamped with applicants. Immigration court judges argue that “justice can be done without lawyers, but it’s tedious.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/07/AR2007010701281.html