Cyrus Mehta, immigration attorney and Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn Law School, has summarized effectively HERE the crisis of representation of those in removal proceedings: a diffuse labyrinth that some 400,000 detainees will enter this year, some for long stays. It is a second, parallel prison system administered by the Department of Homeland Security.
The largest government agency, DHS bears a name with a Prussian ring. It is a bureaucratic monument to America's stunned, unifying, sometimes excessive, reactions to bolts from the blue, the brutal surprise attacks of September 11, 2001.
Of the 300,000 who now face deportation every year only 40% are represented by counsel. Of those detained only 10% are represented Mehta cites the powerful observation of Federal Appeals Judge Robert Katzmann in Aris v Mukasey, 517 F.3d 595 (2d Cir. 2008):
- The importance of quality representation is especially acute to immigrants, a vulnerable population who come to this country searching for a better life, and who often arrive unfamiliar with our language and culture, in economic deprivation and in fear. In immigration matters, so much is at stake – the right to remain in this country, to reunite a family, or to work.
- Katzmann, himself inspired by the experience of his grandparentst who fled the Nazis, addressed the City Bar, calling for a competent corps of volunteer attorneys has inspired a movement among lawyers to provide volunteer assistance to those who are unrepresented. The Varick Street Project was born, as recounted in the Times HERE.
Our borders cannot, of course, be open the way they were when my great grandparents arrived from Galway at Castle Clinton at The Battery. But the fact is that millions are here, their lives entwined with ours in blended families of immigrants and native born, trapped in the labyrinth that self-defense, aspiration, evasion, ineffective immigration controls, xenophobia, and harsh enforcement have created.
Fortunately the pro bono efforts of many lawyers makes a difference. But there is no just alternative to the politically unlikely demand we on the Editorial Board of New Jersey Law Journal have VOICED: create a federally-funded corps of competent attorneys to represent those facing removal from the United States.
My office gets literally hundreds of requests for pro bono representation each month, and as a private law firm we are only able to take a handful.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of people who appear before the Immigration Court without representation is staggering, but unfortunately you do not have a right to a Federally appointed lawyer in civil immigration proceedings.
The answer is for our President to meaningfully address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform so that individuals that are within our borders may seek lawful status, and avoid the pitfalls of a contested immigration court proceeding without the benefit of competent representation.
Well said, Matthew. What I find especially cruel, in the face of the unrepresented is that the government will routinely assign four attorneys to a pro se petition.
ReplyDeleteDear Professor Conk,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this most recent entry of yours. I have often thought that in order for comprehensive immigration reform legislation to be truly "comprehensive," proposed legislation must include sections pertaining to attorney ethics in the context of the representation of the undocumented, much in the same way that Sarbanes-Oxley squarely addressed the issue of attorney ethics in the context of securities regulation following the collapse of Enron and other notable such entities.
Following your post here, it seems that the creation of a mandatory volunteer corps, or at minimum a guaranteed right to representation by counsel, should also be included in any immigration reform proposal that attempts to call itself "comprehensive."
I recently wrote a brief entry on my own blog about the history of "comprehensive" legislation reform from post 9/11 to present which elaborates a little bit upon the frenzied aftermath of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the DNS and abolished the INS. I provide you and your readers a link to that entry at http://tiny.cc/P10M0 if you and your readers are interested in reading it.
There is no doubt that this issue must surface again on President Obama's agenda, among the manifold other dilemmas which he is facing and trying to solve. The question, as I see it, is a matter of when. I would be curious as to your thoughts regarding when we might see another serious "comprehensive" immigration reform bill proposed in the halls of Congress.
Regards,
Paul Zamora