By Arelis R. Hernández
"I've never been to a birthday party before in this country," said Julio as he looked at his daughter in a petite red dress with her hair side-swept....
Where is the 401(c)3 that will carry the responsibility of providing lawyers for what may be considered an illegal alien in the USA?
20 October 2016
By Oliver Laughland
It was a birthday party (click here) they never dreamed would happen, a celebration not only of a girl turning 12 but also of a family reunited and a new life tentatively launched, far from the threats and deadly gang violence of Honduras.
For days, Helen and Julio Acosta planned the menu and guest list, including people from the Catholic church in Germantown, Maryland, where they found support and which had become a second home for the family since their arrival last June.
They pushed aside thoughts of the court hearings that await Helen and the children, who were stopped by Border Patrol agents as they crossed into this country from Mexico, or the potential risks facing Julio - an undocumented immigrant - under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Where is the 401(c)3 that will carry the responsibility of providing lawyers for what may be considered an illegal alien in the USA?
By Oliver Laughland
An overwhelming majority of migrant families (click here) received no legal representation during US immigration court proceedings, meaning they were more likely to be deported, and to be subject to faster proceedings, a new data analysis has revealed.
Researchers at Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (Trac) found that since a 2014 surge in border crossingsby migrant families, 38,601 immigration cases involving migrant families have been closed throughout the federal immigration court system. Seventy percent of these families had no legal representation to defend them from deportation.
The analysis revealed that 43.4% of these unrepresented families were deported at their initial court hearing, compared with just 4% of families who secured representation.
Overall, unrepresented families spent an average of just 60 days in the court system, whereas those with legal representatives spent 286 days before the courts.
Human rights observers said the findings were indicative of the “massive dysfunction and massive denial of due process” present in US immigration courts and warned that many families being deported could have failed to lodge legitimate applications for asylum or relief from deportation...
