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Statement of Mary Meg McCarthy, Executive Director, National Immigrant Justice Center

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center applauds Representatives Bill Foster (D-IL) and Ted Deutch (D-FL) for their introduction of the Immigrant Detainee Legal Rights Act to expand access to legal orientation programs (LOPs) for immigrants in detention.

Immigrants do not have the right to court-appointed lawyers during immigration proceedings. At least 85 percent of men and women who face deportation proceedings from detention do so without legal representation. LOPs, which provide basic information to detained immigrants about the immigration system and their rights, often are individuals' sole source of knowledge as they face a complex court system alone. Enabling detained immigrants to understand their rights through LOPs also helps the courts function more efficiently. Many immigration judges acknowledge that when the people who appear before them understand the legal process, their hearings proceed more effectively and they are able to move more quickly through the system. A Department of Justice report found that individuals who participated in LOPs completed their cases 12 days faster and spent an average of six fewer days in detention—a savings to taxpayers of about $18 million. These efficiencies are critically important to an overburdened and backlogged immigration court system.

The Immigrant Detainee Legal Rights Act is cosponsored by Representatives Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Paul Tonko (D-NY), and Marc Veasey (D-TX). It calls for the Department of Justice, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations, to implement LOPs within a year of enactment in every detention center and jail that houses immigrants. The bill requires that the secretary of Homeland Security and U.S. attorney general make LOP presentations available to all detained immigrants within five days of being taken into custody. The bill also calls for LOPs to be provided in each facility’s five most common languages in order to overcome language barriers that frequently prevent detained immigrants from understanding their rights and the immigration process.

Currently, detained immigrants in the Midwest do not receive any LOPs, placing them at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to navigating the immigration system. Passing the Immigrant Detainee Legal Rights Act is an important step toward increasing geographic parity for all detained immigrants and generating much-needed cost and time efficiencies for immigration court proceedings, while improving due process protections.

Read the Immigrant Detainee Legal Rights Act (PDF)