Legal Representation for Asylum

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Arjun Mishra

Difficulties for Women and Children in Finding Legal Representation for Asylum Cases

The Chicago Reporter posted a story yesterday on the obstacle that asylum seekers in Chicago face in findings lawyers. There are immigration courts in cities across the United States, including Chicago. The Chicago Immigration Court has seen nearly 1,500 cases of women with children in the past year and only 14% are represented by lawyers. According to TRAC at Syracuse University, that is less than half of the national average. TRAC’s data also reports that women and children who have an attorney representing them in their asylum cases are sixteen times more likely to be allowed to remain in the United States.

There are many issues that contribute to this current state. Whereas the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that a defendant standing trial in criminal court is entitled to competent representation, the same protections do not exist in Immigration Court. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not carry the same robust guarantees. Chicago’s Immigration Court alone has 450,000 cases pending. We blogged this week that Immigration Court is facing its worst backlog in history. One judge in Chicago is assigned to each case involving unaccompanied children and women with children. An immigration judge in San Francisco believes that attorneys are important to resolving the crisis because representation “helps judges make the decisions they need with the information they need, and to work through those cases both more quickly and more fairly.”

Asylum can be a difficult legal standard for a seeker to meet, especially for individuals from certain countries with certain claims (gang-related claims from Central America require an exceptional angle). They can be notoriously difficult to prove with evidence and credibility needs to be established. It is also a discretionary form of relief, meaning that meeting the standard for it is not enough to merit a favorable decision.

Immigration Court Backlog

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Arjun Mishra

Immigration Court Backlog Worsens

One of the major news stories of last summer was the unforeseen increase in the number of unaccompanied children who crossed the American border. It was a humanitarian crisis (President Obama’s phrase) by itself, but it also had practical ramifications for immigration court. It swelled the number of individuals facing trial in immigration court and increased the already present backlog.

Immigration Court is facing its highest caseload in its history. At the conclusion of April 2015, there are 445,607 cases pending before the Immigration Courts. That represents a 9.2% increase from the beginning of the 2015 Fiscal Year and an astounding 29.5% increase from the beginning of the 2014 Fiscal Year. The Executive Office of Immigration Review is part of the Department of Justice and an Article I Court (executive branch of government). The unaccompanied children are a small part, however, of the overall immigration court backlog.

Please note that EOIR, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of Homeland Security are separate from USCIS, which grants immigration and nonimmigration benefits for individuals not in removal proceedings.

The four most represented nationalities in Immigration Court at the moment are Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. This is probably explained by their proximity and the current country conditions. China is the fifth most represented nationality. The states with the most individuals in removal proceedings are California, Texas, New York, Florida, and New Jersey. These are among the most populous states in the Union and also the states that have the most immigrants and visitors overall.

Thank you to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University for the statistics. It provides comprehensive, independent, and nonpartisan information about US federal immigration enforcement.

inHUMANE Act

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Andrew Wood

The proposed HUMANE Act seeks to expedite deportations of minor children from countries noncontiguous to the United States. This would result in a marked change from the 2008 Wilberforce Bill, signed by President Bush, that designated children from noncontiguous countries to undergo a different process from Canadian and Mexico children in proceedings.

President Obama has labeled the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the Southwestern border a “humanitarian crisis.” Consensus is difficult to come by in making headway with the crisis. Proposed legislative bills aim for quick assessments and expedited deportations with substantial political traction. However, neither populist nor political backing should motivate clumsy and grossly unfair proposed solutions. Many law firms and rights groups have collaborated to sue the Department of Justice over the lack of representation for minors during their deportation hearings. The crux of their lawsuit is that each child deserves due process and a proper day in court. That fundamentally American principle should apply here to these children. Expediency may seem attractive but is hardly an answer.

These are children trying to escape incredibly dangerous conditions and real violence ravaging their nations; they are fleeing their home countries to escape poverty and gang violence. Those blights seem to predominate the landscape of many Central American countries recently, including El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. These are some of the most dangerous places on earth. Possible solutions floated about include asylum screening processes in the home countries and collaborating with those governments to thwart “coyotes” from misinforming potential migrants. Citizens of those countries will seek escape until home country conditions ameliorate, regardless of the punitive qualities of our deportation system. The HUMANE Act muddies the immigration waters and instead of providing a solution, it seems to palliate mass deportation supporters.

The Law Offices of Andrew Wood, LLC believe the HUMANE Act to be a blatant misnomer and overall harmful piece of proposed legislation. While understanding the appeal of the bipartisanship imprimatur on the HUMANE Act, we fear the aesthetics deflect from the negative qualities. If the HUMANE Act is passed, minor children will not receive proper representation and hearings. A truly humane act would protect the interests of the children and ensure that they receive a fair hearing, rather than accelerate automatic departures. It is a scapegoat action to pinpoint culpability for the increase in undocumented minors from Central and South America on the 2008 bill that rerouted minors from noncontiguous countries.