By Rafael Carranza | The Arizona Republic
Democratic members of Congress want to establish, for the first time, guaranteed access to an attorney for migrants facing deportation from the United States.
Of more than 2 million pending cases before the U.S. immigration court system, approximately 1.3 million of the migrants do not have a lawyer to help them navigate the nation’s complex immigration laws.
Unlike in the U.S. criminal justice system, any person in immigration proceedings does not have a constitutionally protected right to an attorney if they can’t afford to pay for one. That means many migrants or asylum seekers will face well-trained government attorneys and judges on their own.
“[An attorney is] often the difference between prevailing on the case and being deported . . . It will take bipartisan agreement in an area that is often plagued with polarization.”
Darius Amiri, Rose Law Group’s Immigration Department Chair
“It’s like trying a death penalty case in a traffic court setting, because in traffic court you don’t get a lawyer, right? It’s not a criminal offense and so you go and you represent yourself as best you can,” Laura St. John said. “But the consequences that are in place in immigration are so much greater than do I have to pay a ticket.”
St. John is the legal director for the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, a group that offers free legal representation to migrants held in detention facilities in central Arizona.
