7 research outputs found
Improving Lawyers & Lives: How Immigrant Justice Corps Built a Model for Quality Representation While Empowering Recent Law School and College Graduates and the Immigrant Communities Whom They Serve
The late Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit formed a study group in 2008 called the Study Group on Immigrant Representation to assess the scope of the problem and find a solution. The study group determined that the representation crisis was an issue “of both quality and quantity” and that the two most important variables for a successful outcome in a case were having counsel and not being detained. To address this need, the study group established two innovative programs: the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), the first public defender program to provide universal representation to detained New Yorkers; and Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC), the first and only fellowship program exclusively dedicated to increasing representation to low-income immigrants and improving the immigration bar.
IJC, launched in 2014, recruits, trains, and mentors talented Justice Fellows (recent law graduates and law clerks) and exceptional Community Fellows (college graduates who become federally accredited legal representatives). IJC then deploys the Justice and Community Fellows (together, the “Fellows”) in the immigration field to assist low-income immigrants in defending against deportation, seeking lawful status, or applying for citizenship. The Fellows—the great majority of whom are bilingual or multilingual with lived experience of the immigration system—come from top law schools and colleges, and many have developed litigation skills in their schools’ immigration clinics, giving them a head start in mastering the law.
This Essay focuses on the work of IJC and discusses Judge Katzmann and the Study Group on Immigrant Representation’s efforts to find solutions to the representation crisis by developing innovative programs and tackling challenges along the way
Accessing Justice: The Availability and Adequacy of Counsel Removal Proceedings: New York Immigrant Representation Study Report
Accessing Justice II: A Model for Providing Counsel to New York Immigrants in Removal Proceedings
The New York Immigrant Representation Study (“NYIR Study”) is a two-year project of the Study Group on Immigrant Representation to analyze and ameliorate the immigrant representation crisis—the acute shortage of qualified attorneys willing and able to represent indigent immigrants facing deportation. The crisis has reached epic proportions in New York and shows no signs of abating.
In its year-one report (issued in the fall of 2011), the NYIR Study analyzed the empirical evidence regarding the nature and scope of the immigrant representation crisis. In that report, we documented how many New Yorkers—27 percent of those not detained and 60 percent of those who were detained—face deportation, and the prospect of permanent exile from families, homes and livelihoods, without any legal representation whatsoever. These unrepresented individuals are often held in detention and include many lawful permanent residents (green card holders), asylees and refugees, victims of domestic violence, and other classes of vulnerable immigrants with deep ties to New York. The study confirmed that the impact of having counsel cannot be overstated: people facing deportation in New York immigration courts with a lawyer are 500 percent as likely to win their cases as those without representation. While, at one end, nondetained immigrants with lawyers have successful outcomes 74 percent of the time, those on the other end, without counsel and who were detained, prevailed a mere 3 percent of the time.
In its second year, the NYIR Study convened a panel of experts to use the data from the year-one report to develop ambitious, yet realistic, near- to medium-term ways to mitigate the worst aspects of the immigrant representation crisis here in New York. The year-two analysis and proposals are set forth in detail here, in the NYIR Study Report: Part II.
A comprehensive solution to the nationwide immigrant representation crisis will require federal action. However, such federal action does not appear on the horizon. Meanwhile, the costs of needless deportations are felt most acutely in places like New York, with vibrant and vital immigrant communities. In addition to the injustice of seeing New Yorkers deported simply because they lack access to counsel, the impact of these deportations on the shattered New York families left behind is devastating. Moreover, the local community then bears the cost of these deportations in very tangible ways: when splintered families lose wage-earning members, they become dependent on a variety of City and State safety net programs to survive; the foster care system must step in when deportations cause the breakdown of families; and support networks to families and children must accommodate the myriad difficulties that result when federal policies are enforced without regard for local concerns. Put simply, the City and State of New York bear a heavy cost as a result of the immigrant representation crisis
Improving Lawyers & Lives: How Immigrant Justice Corps Built a Model for Quality Representation While Empowering Recent Law School and College Graduates and the Immigrant Communities Whom They Serve
The late Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit formed a study group in 2008 called the Study Group on Immigrant Representation to assess the scope of the problem and find a solution. The study group determined that the representation crisis was an issue “of both quality and quantity” and that the two most important variables for a successful outcome in a case were having counsel and not being detained. To address this need, the study group established two innovative programs: the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), the first public defender program to provide universal representation to detained New Yorkers; and Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC), the first and only fellowship program exclusively dedicated to increasing representation to low-income immigrants and improving the immigration bar.
IJC, launched in 2014, recruits, trains, and mentors talented Justice Fellows (recent law graduates and law clerks) and exceptional Community Fellows (college graduates who become federally accredited legal representatives). IJC then deploys the Justice and Community Fellows (together, the “Fellows”) in the immigration field to assist low-income immigrants in defending against deportation, seeking lawful status, or applying for citizenship. The Fellows—the great majority of whom are bilingual or multilingual with lived experience of the immigration system—come from top law schools and colleges, and many have developed litigation skills in their schools’ immigration clinics, giving them a head start in mastering the law.
This Essay focuses on the work of IJC and discusses Judge Katzmann and the Study Group on Immigrant Representation’s efforts to find solutions to the representation crisis by developing innovative programs and tackling challenges along the way
Accessing Justice: The Availability and Adequacy of Counsel in Removal Proceedings
The immigrant representation crisis is a crisis of both quality and quantity. It is the acute shortage of competent attorneys willing and able to competently represent individuals in immigration removal proceedings. Removal proceedings are the primary mechanism by which the federal government can seek to effect the removal, or deportation, of a noncitizen. The individuals who face removal proceedings might be: the long-term lawful permanent resident (green card holder) who entered the country lawfully as a child and has lived in the United States for decades; or the refugee who has come to the United States fleeing persecution; or the undocumented immigrant caught trying to illegally cross the border. By every measure, the number of deportations and removal proceedings has skyrocketed over the last decade. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of removal proceedings initiated per year in our nation’s immigration courts increased nearly fifty percent, totaling over 300,000 last year. During that period, the representation rate of respondents in removal proceedings has remained relatively constant and abysmally low. Correspondingly, the actual number of unrepresented individuals has virtually doubled
Accessing Justice II: A Model for Providing Counsel to New York Immigrants in Removal Proceedings
The New York Immigrant Representation Study (“NYIR Study”) is a two-year project of the Study Group on Immigrant Representation to analyze and ameliorate the immigrant representation crisis—the acute shortage of qualified attorneys willing and able to represent indigent immigrants facing deportation. The crisis has reached epic proportions in New York and shows no signs of abating.
In its year-one report (issued in the fall of 2011), the NYIR Study analyzed the empirical evidence regarding the nature and scope of the immigrant representation crisis. In that report, we documented how many New Yorkers—27 percent of those not detained and 60 percent of those who were detained—face deportation, and the prospect of permanent exile from families, homes and livelihoods, without any legal representation whatsoever. These unrepresented individuals are often held in detention and include many lawful permanent residents (green card holders), asylees and refugees, victims of domestic violence, and other classes of vulnerable immigrants with deep ties to New York. The study confirmed that the impact of having counsel cannot be overstated: people facing deportation in New York immigration courts with a lawyer are 500 percent as likely to win their cases as those without representation. While, at one end, nondetained immigrants with lawyers have successful outcomes 74 percent of the time, those on the other end, without counsel and who were detained, prevailed a mere 3 percent of the time.
In its second year, the NYIR Study convened a panel of experts to use the data from the year-one report to develop ambitious, yet realistic, near- to medium-term ways to mitigate the worst aspects of the immigrant representation crisis here in New York. The year-two analysis and proposals are set forth in detail here, in the NYIR Study Report: Part II.
A comprehensive solution to the nationwide immigrant representation crisis will require federal action. However, such federal action does not appear on the horizon. Meanwhile, the costs of needless deportations are felt most acutely in places like New York, with vibrant and vital immigrant communities. In addition to the injustice of seeing New Yorkers deported simply because they lack access to counsel, the impact of these deportations on the shattered New York families left behind is devastating. Moreover, the local community then bears the cost of these deportations in very tangible ways: when splintered families lose wage-earning members, they become dependent on a variety of City and State safety net programs to survive; the foster care system must step in when deportations cause the breakdown of families; and support networks to families and children must accommodate the myriad difficulties that result when federal policies are enforced without regard for local concerns. Put simply, the City and State of New York bear a heavy cost as a result of the immigrant representation crisis