SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Lawyer Kamalpreet Chohan ran her finger down a list of 57 names of people scheduled to appear during a morning of hearings at the immigration court in California's capital and pointed out one glaring absence.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Lawyer Kamalpreet Chohan ran her finger down a list of 57 names of people scheduled to appear during a morning of hearings at the immigration court in California's capital and pointed out one glaring absence.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Lawyer Kamalpreet Chohan ran her finger down a list of 57 names of people scheduled to appear during a morning of hearings at the immigration court in California’s capital and pointed out one glaring absence.
“None of these folks are represented,” she said.
Chohan is the coordinator of a program that sends volunteer lawyers to immigration courts to assist people without representation and help them navigate the complicated legal system where the stakes are a future in America or deportation.
Appearing without a lawyer opens up even greater risk under the second Trump administration, with the courts playing a key role in its mass deportation agenda. Courts are increasingly denying asylum, deportation officers have arrested immigrants in court hallways, the administration has packed courtrooms to cut backlogs and reduced lead time on hearings, prompting people to miss them.
Data shows that legal representation can be vital to winning in court but many immigrants, unable to pay for a private lawyer or find a pro bono one, navigate the system without an attorney at their side.
“Folks go into immigration court not knowing what’s happening. They come out not knowing what’s happening. And when there’s an attorney present,” Chohan said, “it’s just so helpful.”
Immigrants aren’t provided an attorney but legal help makes a difference
Unlike criminal court, there is no guaranteed lawyer in immigration courts.
Immigrants have to hire one at a cost of thousands of dollars or hope to get represented by one of the nonprofit organizations assisting low-income immigrants. But waitlists with those organizations are long, and many parts of the country just do not have that many immigration attorneys.
Of the roughly 3.2 million pending deportation cases currently in U.S. immigration courts, people in 52% of those cases do not have a lawyer, according to an analysis of immigration court data by the Vera Institute of Justice, a think tank.
A Congressional Research Service study from 2024 found that only 19% of people who did not have a lawyer won asylum or another avenue to stay in the United States. Among those who did have a lawyer, 47% were successful.
Source: Read the original article on www.winnipegfreepress.com