Free Lawyers For Illegals

By Federale

05/31/2013

On the heels of an illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of the legislative and taxing authority of Congress when the Obama Regime, in collusion with the Treason Bar, provided taxpayer funded attorneys to certain classes of illegal aliens, the Treason Bar, Marco Rubio, and the Regime have tucked away legislative fig leaf to provide cover for the usurpation. And on cue, the Treason Bar and it echo chamber in the media are demanding an expansion of taxpayer attorneys for the next class of illegal aliens.

Slate May 15, 2013 by Mark Noferi

Deportation Without Representation

Tucked onto page 567 of the Senate’s 844-page immigration reform bill is perhaps its most groundbreaking provision. For the first time, the U.S. government would voluntarily provide a free lawyer to an immigrant in deportation proceedings.

The bill only gives lawyers to the most sympathetic: the mentally disabled, children, and the vaguely described “particularly vulnerable.” But the seeds are there for the broader right to counsel for detained immigrants that criminal defendants have received for 50 years. Congress should provide that. Immigrants who are detained and awaiting hearings cannot adequately represent themselves while jailed. And while other parts of immigration reform are hugely controversial, providing lawyers to detainees would be a surprisingly easy sell politically, if history is a guide.

Of course, also on cue, kritarchs are moving quickly, seeing an opening by the Regime’s usurpation of Congress' authority, and moving to impose free attorneys for all illegal aliens.

No detained immigrants are appointed lawyers while jailed. Judge Robert Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit calls this the “immigrant representation crisis.” Some detainees hire lawyers, or are lucky enough to find free counsel. But 84 percent, in 2010, were not so lucky.

In due course, claim is put forward that taxpayer provided attorneys would "pay for themselves" by making immigration courts more efficient.

Another argument against appointed counsel for immigrants is the expense. Yet the lawyers most likely pay for themselves by increasing the efficiency of immigration courts, reducing time spent in costly detention, and lowering the cost of caring for children separated from their parents. Detention of one immigrant costs nearly $60,000 per year — about the cost of one lawyer, who could help hundreds escape detention and fight deportation. That’s money much better spent.

That, of course, is absurd. The real purpose is that it will reduce deportations of illegal aliens by clogging the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) with continuous appeals until the alien wins or the expense to the government of fighting each and every deportation to the Supreme Court becomes prohibitive.

What this claim does though is expose the wastefulness of the immigration court system. The only aliens with any claim to any review should be legal permanent residents, but most aliens in detention are those who have no legal status, either entering illegally or overstaying a term of admission (e.g. visa overstay).

The real solution to expensive detention is expedited removal, the process by which illegal aliens are deported with only an administrative review for factual and legal sufficiency. This will not only immediately reduce administrative costs of the immigration enforcement system, but will systematically reduce the illegal immigration population by immediately increasing removals of illegal aliens, but the fear of enforcement will increase self-deportation as well as decrease new illegal immigration by reducing the magnet of an entrenched appeals system that is well known outside the United States.

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