Getting Off the Assembly Line: Overcoming Immigration Court Obstacles in Individual Cases
By Appleseed for Justice
There are few things a lawyer can do more profound than helping an immigrant avoid deportation. From saving a refugee from persecution to keeping a long-time U.S. resident from exile, the professional and personal rewards are tremendous. Yet there are a great number of challenges in immigration court, a venue unfamiliar to many litigators and other pro bono lawyers. This guide is intended to supplement the basic rules and procedures of immigration court with tips from experienced practitioners on how to deal with some of the peculiarities of these courts, including interpretation, videoconferencing, and a confounding document discovery process. The fifty-seven immigration courts are staffed by approximately 250 judges,2 sitting from New York to Honolulu. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Reform (“EOIR”) governs each of these courts, and each applies the same federal substantive and procedural law, but the practices differ formally and informally— sometimes even from judge to judge. Appleseed gathered information from practitioners in a variety of courts in diverse geographies, and the guidance in this book is the result of their willingness to share their experiences and tips.
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Of course, the practical application of this guidance will depend greatly on the context in which the practitioner finds herself: the court, the judge, the opposing Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) attorney, and, of course, the client’s circumstances. And a pro bono lawyer taking his first case in immigration court will undoubtedly view these tips with a different perspective than a long-time immigration practitioner. But we hope that any lawyer can find here a framework for decision-making when encountering the peculiarities of litigating in immigration court—the near-absence of formal discovery, the challenges of a hearing interpreted into and from a foreign language, the minimal out-of=court contact between opposing counsel, and the obstacles presented by a videoconference system that keeps counsel miles away from the client. The guide is intended to inform your strategic choices as counsel in immigration court, but by no means to mandate a particular course of action. Above all else, a lawyer in immigration court needs to act in the client’s interest, even if that means deciding not to push aggressively against a videoconference hearing, to stop a sloppy interpretation, or to file a complaint against a misbehaving DHS attorney
Washington, DC: Appleseed Fund for Justice, 2016. 126p.