As things stand, children routinely have no choice but to represent themselves in immigration court.
Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the Remain in Mexico Policy was blocked by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, seeming to halt a policy which drastically reduced the amount of border crossings. However, the court later granted the Trump Administration a stay on the program, for fear of creating an influx on the southern border.
Under the cover of the pandemic, the Trump administration has closed the southern border indefinitely to desperate asylum seekers, suspended visas for skilled workers, threatened to deport foreign students, and generally increased the opacity and bureaucracy of the immigration system.
There are more than 60,000 migrants waiting to apply for asylum at the border right now, and more than 30,000 in ICE detention centers around the country—many operated by for-profit private prison companies. There are simply not enough lawyers. It may be time to require the government to provide an immigration attorney to those who cannot afford one because of what’s at stake.
Due process arguments that the federal government should provide counsel to those facing removal have not been successful. The only exception is one federal court that ordered the government to provide counsel to immigrant detainees with mental disabilities. But that’s it. Non-detained respondents who are mentally incompetent are not covered by the ruling. Even children facing deportation are not provided counsel; they are regularly forced to represent themselves in court.
Does having an attorney make a difference? Of course. Those in removal proceedings with representation are three times more likely to win their case than those without attorneys. Broken down further, for those in detention without an attorney only one out of seven avoid removal, while detained people who are represented prevail almost half the time. For children facing deportation; only 15 percent of unaccompanied minors facing deportation without representation are permitted to remain in the country, while 73 percent of those with representation are granted relief. Only about a third of individuals facing deportation have counsel.
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