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Pro Bono Representation for Detained Immigrants

NYC Know Your Rights Project:  An Innovative Pro Bono Response to the Lack of Counsel for Indigent Immigrant Detainees is a Nov. 2009 report on a collaboration among the City Bar Justice Center, the Legal Aid Society of New York, and the NYC chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association to staff a clinic at a lower Manhattan detention facility. The project found that approximately two in five detainees had potentially meritorious claims for relief, and the report recommends government-funded appointed counsel for alldetained immigrants who cannot afford private counsel.

Counsel Urged for Immigrants with Mental Disabilities Who Face Removal Proceedings

Legal advocates, doctors, patients rights groups, and other public interest organizations--77 in all--wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to appoint counsel for all immigrants with mental disabilities who are in removal proceedings. The signatories cite international standards favoriing a right to counsel in immigration proceedings, quote an Amnesty International report from March 2009 that found 84% of detained immigrants are unrepresented, and urge appointed counsel as a matter of due process and fundamental fairness. For more information contact Greg Pleasants, Mental Health Advocacy Services.

Holder Reinstates Right to Effective Counsel in Removal Proceedings

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reversed a January policy change implemented by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, according to which noncitizens had no constitutional right to effective counsel in removal (deportation) proceedings. The Mukasey ruling, in turn, had reversed a 15-year-old precedent established in Matter if Lozada, which recognized a 5th amendment due process right to a new hearing in the case of ineffective assistance of counsel. Holder ordered the Executive Office for Immigration Review to "initiate rulemaking procedures ... to

evaluate the Lozada framework and to determine what modifications should be proposed for public consideration."

To read the Holder ruling click here. For a New York Times article on the Holder reversal click here.

The vast majority—some 80 percent—of the more than 300,000 immigrants detained for civil immigration removal proceedings are not represented by attorneys. These immigrants face proceedings that are adversarial and pit the detainee, who is likely to have minimal education and limited English proficiency, against a trained prosecutor before an administrative law judge. Victims of persecution and torture are forced to pursue asylum claims on their own, as are immigrants seeking the

protection that federal law confers on trafficking victims and victims of domestic violence.

Representation makes a critical difference. According to Department of Justice data, immigrants represented by counsel were eight times as likely as unrepresented claimants to be granted asylum.

Advocates have succeeded in lobbying Congress for significant funding for pro bono programs to recruit, train, supervise and mentor pro bono attorneys in immigration removal cases, including the legal orientation program administered by the executive office for immigration review through a subcontract with the Vera Institute of Justice. For more information, contact Christopher Nugent.

 

Shadow Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

In 2007 advocates submitted a “shadow report” to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, arguing that people of color, being disproportionately poor, are disproportionately harmed by the lack of civil counsel and that access to counsel is a critical component of access to justice. Structured as a Response to the 2007 Periodic Report of the United States of America on Compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the report is entitled Access to Civil Justice:  Racial Disparities and Discriminatory Impacts Arising from Lack of Access to Counsel in Civil Cases.