As immigration enforcement has grown exponentially harsher and more expansive, there is still no right to counsel in immigration proceedings.
WATCH THE SHORT FILM "UNACCOMPANIED: ALONE IN AMERICA" TO WATCH CHILDREN FORCED TO REPRESENT THEMSELVES.
Unlike in criminal court, immigrants do not have a constitutional right to appointed counsel, and must either hire private counsel or hope for representation from extremely limited nonprofit and pro bono programs. As a result, the vast majority of immigrants in immigration proceedings do not have lawyers—whether they are elderly, are children as young as 2 and 3, know how to read or write, speak limited English, or have serious mental or physical illnesses—while on the other side of the courtroom, a trained lawyer argues against them.
Representation makes all the difference: With representation, unaccompanied minors are allowed to remain 73% of the time, while without representation, only 15% are. Without counsel, women and their children almost never prevail on their asylum cases—only 1.6% of the time. That compared with 26.3% success rate for those with counsel. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to win relief from deportation without the assistance of counsel—only 5 percent of those who won relief between 2007 and 2012 did so without an attorney.