READ MY ESSAY ON A NEW PARADIGM FOR IMMIGRATION PRO BONO AS WELL AS GREAT ESSAYS FROM PROFESSORS MATTHEW BOAZ AND ELIZABETH JORDAN! – immigrationcourtside.com
Tragically, due process, for the most vulnerable and everyone else, is now a forgotten concept in the dysfunctional and unforgiving Immigration Court system. “This is due process?” PHOTO: The Daily Beast
All persons in the United States are entitled to constitutional due pro-cess.1 For those facing life or death hearings in the backlogged and dysfunctional executive branch immigration courts, due process requires representation, at government expense, if necessary.2
For decades, all three branches of our government have disgracefully ignored this simple truth.3 We now have a huge “representation gap” that undermines the legitimacy and fairness of our entire justice system.4
This leaves a key aspect of our legal system largely to the already over-worked and unfairly burdened pro bono bar. Dynamic leaders of the pro bono movement for immigrants in both the public and private sectors have set inspiring examples. I will highlight four of my “personal pro bono heroes.”
Yet, our Government has failed to invest in and build upon this leader-ship and these efforts. Today, the many wonderful non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) that provide essential pro bono services to immigrants are outrageously being disparaged and attacked by the administration for their life-saving work.5
If, as Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Secretary Kristi Noem suggests, human rights NGOs are a “shadow government,”6 they are the only“national government” working to uphold democracy’s ideals and the rule of law in real-life situations.
We cannot rely on the federal government to fix or fund representation in Immigration Court. While heroic and greatly appreciated, local private sector and state government pro bono efforts are often uneven, largely uncoordinated, and lack a reliable unified funding strategy.7
The pro bono effort needs a “paradigm change” and consolidation. Consequently, I recommend the creation of a National Representation Center\ (“NRC”) to succeed and lead where our Government has failed.
This is the lede of my essay “Representation In The Age of Repression: America’s Real Immigration Crisis Is The Lack Of Representation In Immigration Court,” as published in the Symposium Edition of the University of Arkansas Little Rock Law Review. 48 U. ARK. LITTLE ROCK L. REV. 67 (2025) (footnotes omitted). You can read my complete essay and access the full edition here:
This Symposium Edition also contains great essays by Professor Matthew Boaz (U. of KY Law), my former Refugee Law & Policy student at Georgetown Law, on “Narrative Drip in Immigration Enforcement,” and Professor Elizabeth Jordan (U. of Denver Law) on “Bars to Asylum For Disabled and Criminalized Noncitizens,” as well as three great law review student notes!
Many thanks to Editor-in-Chief Chacey Schoeppel Wilcox, Symposium Editor Brooke S. Fudoli, previous Symposium Editor Alycia Jameson (now an IJC Fellow/Staff Attorney at The Resurrection Project Immigrant Justice Legal Clinic in Chicago), and their team at the Law Review. I would never have gotten through the process without your assistance.
So, there you have it folks. 52 years after the publication of my first student law review article in the 1973 Wis L. Rev., I’m still writing. Far fewer footnotes in this one though! 😎
