Publicly funded immigration defense programs are a “much more permanent” solution, Picón said. Irakere Picón, a lead organizer of the Defenders for All Coalition and director of legal services at the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, said nonprofits can only “fill in the voids” that exist in funding from city, county, and state governments. “When you’re able to start the defense early, even before someone ends up in immigration custody, ultimately, you are reducing the amount of time that might have to be in custody,” Jorjani said. Raha Jorjani, who has run the Alameda County immigration unit since its inception in 2014, said incorporating deportation defense within a public defender’s office helps cut down the time that an immigrant might spend in detention - which helps keeps immigrant families and their communities intact. One of the first was Alameda County, California, which includes Oakland and Berkeley and was one of the models for Cook County’s immigration unit. Only a handful have public defenders directly represent immigrants in immigration court. Most of those jurisdictions - including Chicago - pay immigration nonprofits to take on deportation cases. More than 40 cities and counties provide public funds for deportation defense. The immediate focus will be to represent immigrants in immigration detention and to take on cases stemming from criminal convictions that could set legal precedents that would benefit other immigrants in similar circumstances, Mansori said. Hena Mansori, a longtime Chicago immigration attorney who was tapped to lead the public defender’s immigration unit, said she expects the unit to take on its first deportation case early next year. Hena Mansori, the head attorney of the new immigration unit in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, near her home March 22, on the Northwest Side of Chicago. “The coalition will keep working towards universal representation, and this bill is one important piece that helps us get there.”Īpril Alonso for Borderless Magazine/Catchlight Local “Everyone has the right to due process, including immigrants, and immigrants should also have the right to an attorney if they can’t afford one,” said Eréndira Rendón, vice president of immigrant advocacy and defense at The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit based in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and one of the coalition’s lead organizers. Advocates want the county to hire another two next year - which is not nearly enough to represent everyone in need of a lawyer at the Chicago Immigration Court.īut local immigrant rights advocates with the Defenders for All Coalition, which helped push for the bill, said it is a small step toward their ultimate goal of legal representation for everyone in immigration court. Indeed, the county’s immigration unit has enough funding to hire just two immigration attorneys this year. The bill doesn’t require Cook County to provide a lawyer for every immigrant facing deportation or provide the county with new state funds to hire more immigration attorneys. Immigrants are five to 10 times more likely to avoid deportation if they have legal representation, according to recent studies that analyzed immigration court data from Chicago and New York. Nearly 70% of the more than 10,000 immigrants with deportation cases before the Chicago Immigration Court last fiscal year did not have a lawyer, according to data compiled and analyzed by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. “People are being deported who have legal claims to stay in the United States but can’t assert them because they don’t have the help of an attorney,” Kenney said. Liz Kenney, an immigration policy expert at the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice who helped Cook County develop its immigration unit, said it will help “level the playing field.” Supporters of the bill said providing deportation defense through the public defender’s office will help immigrants who can’t afford an attorney and who might have a legal right to stay in the country.
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