In immigration debate, it’s time to send in the lawyers

As battle lines are drawn over the fate of undocumented immigrants in the United States, squadrons of volunteer attorneys, quickly schooled in the basics of immigration law, are mustering in what may be the most inspiring response so far to the Trump administration’s drive to deport.

There’s a network forming in Kansas City, with plans to duplicate efforts soon in other cities.

Appeals were made to major law firms, and more than 50 lawyers have already stepped up, assigned to work pro bono with a deserving immigrant scooped up by immigration agents.

The volunteer effort is being managed via an int portal that’s fed pertinent data on each immigrant. The attorneys make a three- to five-hour commitment for each case through the Deportation Defense Legal Network.

Advocates for the program argue that immigrants who are being detained and have counsel are four times more likely to be released. They are eleven times more likely to try and find a legal route to remain in the country.

Good legal counsel for detainees is necessary because a war on immigrants has been launched.

Hundreds of young people, brought to the U.S. as children, are lapsing into dicey legal territory every day despite having presented themselves before our government, paid fees, allowed themselves to be fingerprinted, photographed and have other biometrics taken. No matter, with Congress stalled on legislative relief and the president dead-set against continuing the DACA program worked out by the Obama administration, increasing numbers are now finding themselves open to the threat of deportation.

And long-standing guidelines on whom to prioritize for deportation and whom to spare have been thrown to the wind.

Anecdotal evidence indicates a sharp shift in attitude. Immigrants who have been allowed to remain in the good graces of the federal government as long as they check in regularly with immigration agents now are not coming out of those meetings. They’re literally being whisked out another door, taken into custody.

Immigrant communities are starting to feel that no one is safe.

For all the heated rhetoric that immigration generates, immigration law is a rather dry matter. It’s the dealings of lawyers, nuances of the law to find out if appropriate guidelines were followed, applications were made on time, or even if there is a legal route for a particular migrant to apply and enter, much less work or stay long term. It’s paperwork.

The detailed work appeals to Bob Grove, director of the Deportation Defense Legal Network. He’s a software person by trade who was so dismayed after the election of Donald Trump that he set aside his career and focused on activism.

His idea is similar to one run by the Innovation Law Lab, a program Grove ran across when he began meeting with Kansas City immigration attorneys. “With this administration, all the rules are being changed,” Grove says.

Grove’s pitch rang true to attorneys at major law firms, people who understand the difficulties that the average person would have trying to navigate any legal system alone.

Case by case, the push is on to even the playing field. It’s a relatively simply response, all about fairness. In that way, it feels very American.