National Courts Monitor

The Key To Immigration? Hiring An Attorney

Updated: November 3, 2016

Wilfredo Allen, center, consults with Marlene Hasner and Camila Correal in his Miami office. Photo Credit: 10/30/16 Miami Herald Report

A Miami Herald report is adding fuel to the argument that would-be immigrants with legal representation fare much better than those without. The newspaper focuses on an individual case that “… seems to prove the theory among immigration lawyers that foreign nationals represented by an attorney in immigration court proceedings have a better chance of winning their case than those left to their own devices. But the first formal study on legal representation of foreign nationals in immigration proceedings actually proves the validity of that theory.”

“By reviewing over 1.2 million deportation cases decided across the United States over a six-year period, this report provides an urgent portrait of the lack of counsel in immigration courts,” according to the study issued by the American Immigration Council. “In it, we reveal that 63 percent of all immigrants went to court without an attorney. Detained immigrants were even less likely to obtain counsel — 86 percent attended their court hearings without an attorney. For immigrants held in remote detention centers, access to counsel was even more severely impaired, only 10 percent of immigrants detained in small cities obtained counsel.”

You can read the Herald story here: For immigrants crossing the border, they need one thing to help win the case

Former NY Prosecutor Outlines ‘The Real Crisis’ For Immigration

by NCM Staff

Updated: October 26, 2016

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Quotas for depriving people of their liberty (KATE BRUMBACK/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Over the last five years, the budget for immigration courts grew by 74% — but the budget for immigration enforcement agencies grew by over 400%. The result is gridlock that makes those old criminal court dockets look like models of efficiency.

Former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, writing in the New York Daily News, outlines just how bad the U.S. immigration court crisis has become, blaming political pressures and adding that “… the result is a backlog that staggers the imagination. Today, when immigrants ask when they need to return to court, many are told in 2023.

“Morgenthau outlines the oft-cited, but still hard to believe, stats: “According to the most recent data from a think tank at Syracuse University, there are currently pending before our immigration courts over half a million removal cases. That averages about 2,000 cases per judge.”

The writer offers some solutions and begins with judges: “What is to be done? Regardless of how one feels about immigration reform generally, everyone can agree that we need to restore sanity to immigration court. First, immigration judges should be real judges. Right now, they are employees of the Justice Department, and not genuinely independent.”

He also makes a call for a sort of Civil Gideon, the idea that some civil cases (as opposed to criminal cases) should require representation (immigration cases are considered civil actions): “Congress must also ensure that immigrants get proper legal representation when their basic rights are at stake… a study published this month disclosed that in 70% of cases involving adults with children, there was no legal representation for the family.”

And, obviously, increase capacity. It’s a well-considered piece from somebody who knows of what they speak. Read it, and find the writer’s other missives on immigration and other issues, here:

Robert Morgenthau: America’s real immigration crisis

On The ABA Not Standing Up To A ‘Libel Bully’

by NCM Staff

Updated: October 25, 2016

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Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Naples, Fla., on Sunday. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Welcome to the age of the “libel bully.” The American Bar Association used the phrase to describe Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a report on his litigation, but knew better than to publish that report. The New York Times writes that “… the [ABA] report concluded that Mr. Trump was a “libel bully” who had filed many meritless suits attacking his opponents and had never won in court. But the bar association refused to publish the report, citing “the risk of the A.B.A. being sued by Mr. Trump.

The story notes that “.. internal communications, the bar association’s leadership, including its general counsel’s office and public relations staff, did not appear to dispute the report’s conclusions.

But James Dimos, the association’s deputy executive director, objected to the term ‘libel bully’ and other sharp language in the report, saying in an Oct. 19 email that the changes were needed to address ‘the legitimately held views of A.B.A. staff who are charged with managing the reputational and financial risk to the association.'”

Another quote from A.B.A. staff push-back: “While we do not believe that such a lawsuit has merit, it is certainly reasonable to attempt to reduce such a likelihood by removing inflammatory language that is unnecessary to further the article’s thesis,” Mr. Dimos wrote. “Honestly, it is the same advice members of the forum would provide to their own clients.”

Catch up on your irony here.

WaPo Reporting On California Charter School Litigation, Issues

by NCM Staff

Updated: October 20, 2016

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Valerie Strauss, Education Reporter

Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post is reporting on the California charter school legal issues, including why the Golden State has so much civil litigation. Strauss notes that “… California, called the charter Wild West, deserves special attention… the state has more charter schools and charter school students than any other state in the nation. One billionaire even came up with a secret plan to “charterize” half of the Los Angeles Unified School District…”

Among the problems she lists that “… a report released recently by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group, found that more than 20 percent of all California charter schools have enrollment policies that violate state and federal law.” She also backgrounds that “… in some places, charter schools open without mentioning their existence to the traditional school district in which they reside, prompting lawsuits by the districts.”

Read the third of her ongoing series here:Valerie Strauss

NYT Outlines Obama’s Immigration ‘Shift’

by NCM Staff

Updated: October 17, 2016

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Councilman Mark Levine at a rally at New York City Hall on Monday in support of a bill that would provide legal help to low-income tenants facing eviction. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Central American immigrants who had been released from United States Border Patrol detention waited at the Greyhound bus station in McAllen, Tex., in July 2014. Credit John Moore/Getty Images

The New York Times is among those reporting that the Obama administration is “delaying deportation proceedings” for recent immigrants in cities across the United States, allowing more than 50,000 of those who fled Central American communities since 2014 to remain in the country – legally – for years. It’s not a true policy shift, but instead a cost-saving measure, experts say. They also say mostly families are the ones staying.

The NYT reported that: “The shift, described in interviews with immigration lawyers, federal officials, and current and former judges, has been occurring without public attention for months. It amounts to an unannounced departure from the administration’s widely publicized pronouncements that cases tied to the so-called surge of 2014 would be rushed through the immigration courts in an effort to deter more Central Americans from entering the United States illegally.”

The report also notes that “.. the delays are being made as a cost-saving measure, federal officials said, because of a lapse in enforcement that allowed immigrants who were supposed to be enrolled in an electronic monitoring program to go free. Some of those affected had failed to report to government offices to be fitted with GPS ankle bracelets, according to a February memo from the chief immigration judge, Print Maggard, in Arlington, Va. Now that the government will not have to pay the daily fee of $4 to $8 a person to monitor such bracelets, the immigrants’ cases have been pushed back for years, some until 2023, judges and federal officials said. The cases of those who met their reporting obligations are still being expedited, with some cases moving faster than lawyers and judges had expected.”

Read the NYT story here: Obama Administration Is Quietly Delaying Thousands of Deportation Cases