Asylum-seekers who are forced to wait in Mexico until their U.S. court hearings are struggling to find lawyers. That helps explain why many of them aren't winning their cases. Amid the coronavirus, it will only get harder.
FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2019 file photo, migrants, many who were returned to Mexico under the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico," program wait in line to get a meal in an encampment near the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros, Mexio. One by one, asylum-seekers from El Salvador and Honduras who are waiting in Mexico for court hearings in the United States appeared before an immigration judge to explain why, after months of effort, they couldn't find an attorney.
“Our law is very complicated,” O’Connor told her in November before offering her a third extension to try to track down an attorney. “Immigration law is considered one of the most complicated areas of the law there is. ... Even lawyers struggle.” The coronavirus presents more hurdles as lawyers contend with potential exposure in small courtrooms and afor least 30 days. The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review has closed many courts but continued with Remain in Mexico hearings.
Before the virus struck, The Associated Press contacted all 21 attorney’s offices on U.S. government lists of free and low-cost providers in courts that handle Remain in Mexico cases and found only two have taken on a large load. Jewish Family Service of San Diego has represented 68 people and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas, has taken 76 cases.
Phones ring regularly with pleas from asylum-seekers. Employees sift through hundreds of calls and messages. Their families in the U.S. spend hours calling and following up. El Paso attorney Taylor Levy, who takes limited cases referred by Mexican migrant shelters, said she rushed to Ciudad Juarez to help a client who just escaped kidnappers. U.S. authorities allowed the client to remain in the U.S. but they spent more than three hours in line on the Mexican side of a border bridge while the woman’s kidnappers sent her text messages, threatening to pursue her.
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