Bay Area nonprofits are raising concerns about the increasing number of immigrants in need of legal representation as the Trump administration prepares to enact mass deportation policies. Advocacy groups report long waitlists, limited funding, and a lack of resources, leaving many immigrants vulnerable ahead of the incoming administration's plans.
Legal representation for immigrants is critical but scarce. Open Door Legal, part of a coalition addressing deportation cases, reports a waitlist of over 1,200 people in immigration court, as ABC7 Bay Area reports. Of those, roughly half are children, some of whom have been separated from their families. Without legal assistance, immigrants are often unable to successfully present their cases in court, as immigration proceedings do not guarantee state-funded legal counsel.
Adding to the challenge is the overburdened immigration court system. There were more than 103,000 pending cases in San Francisco alone last year according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
"The immigration court system in the United States is broken," said Bill Hing, Professor Law and Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco to ABC7. "There are not enough immigration judges to handle the large number of people that are in the backlog,"
Experts have been calling out the need for additional funding to hire attorneys and address the backlog in San Francisco for weeks. A piece by The San Francisco Standard published back on November 18, emphasized that "the city is already stretched to its breaking point, with a burgeoning waitlist for assistance and major funding problems."
The piece quoted Adrian Tirtanadi, executive director of the nonprofit Open Door Legal, who explained that "just to represent everyone in deportation proceedings now would cost an additional $2 million to $3 million in funding."
The Latin Times recently talked to several immigration lawyers around the country who are working around the clock to face the growing demand in immigration services. Gina Amato Lough, Directing Attorney of Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project, attributed this rise to the "fear that people are feeling as we move toward inauguration":
"Folks are scrambling right now to assess whether or not they're eligible for some form of immigration relief. Even people who are currently in status are scrambling to find another status to apply for to protect themselves"
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