Jennifer Landau is a 2006 graduate of the UNM School of Law. Now she’s adjunct faculty at the UNM School of Law committed to providing clinical training to rookie attorneys interested in understanding, and perhaps practicing, immigration law. Her full-time job is working as a staff attorney at Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services, Inc.
Photo: Jennifer Landau
Undocumented immigrants travel a difficult road. Hers wasn’t so easy either. The UNM Law School offered limited training in its law clinic in immigration issues. The State of New Mexico had a dearth of trained immigration attorneys.
Landau graduated, got a fellowship and a following and came back to teach because alone she couldn’t help all the immigrants in need of legal services.
Coming to study law close to the border was a natural progression from her work at the Immigration Institute of New Jersey. There, she worked on refugee resettlement, social services and legal matters for immigrants. The immigrants she saw were mostly from Africa, Cuba and Russia, she said.
She saw a need in this state. The need wasn’t just for more immigration attorneys, but social and legal services for immigrants, too. “There are only 20 attorneys who specialize in immigration in New Mexico, with most of them being in Albuquerque and a couple in Santa Fe. There are none in Las Cruces,” she noted.
The immigrant population is low income, she said, and a few organizations and non-profits provide limited services, particularly for family-based petitions, but there are not many places for people to go.
As a third year law student Landau conducted a research project on access to justice for immigrants in New Mexico and developed a special interest in the immigrant detained in Albuquerque’s downtown detention center, the Regional Correctional Center. “No one was representing the immigrant detainees,” she said. She addressed her concern with the State Bar of New Mexico. “Others were concerned about the situation, as well,” she said.
Following graduation she went to Spain for eight months through a Ministry of Education program. She went as a language assistant to improve her Spanish and work in public education abroad. “I was also waiting to hear about a fellowship application I’d submitted,” she said.
In January 2007, she received a fellowship from the Equal Justice Works Foundation in Washington, D.C., to provide representation for immigrants in New Mexico. They give 50 fellowships each year for those engaged in public interest law work. Landau partnered with Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, Inc., a Catholic non-profit organization in El Paso, Texas.
She spent that summer defending people in deportation cases. “I was interviewing detainees in El Paso, screening them to see if they qualified for services and representing those clients in court,” she said. Landau added that the El Paso Immigration Court, an administrative court under the Department of Justice, has jurisdiction throughout New Mexico.
What she discovered is that many of the immigrants had been transferred from other places, like New York and California. “Bed space was less expensive in El Paso and in Chaparral, but the transfer often meant that detainees were unable to receive visits from family members and access resources available in their ‘home’ states. The long distance also made it difficult for detainee to gather documents necessary for their cases.”
“What also makes access to legal defense difficult for immigrants is that they have no right to government paid counsel since immigration infractions are civil, not criminal,” Landau said.
She said that the stakes are particularly high for those who have been in the United States their entire lives. “It is heart-wrenching. These people have lots to lose, including separation from their families. Sometimes they don’t even speak the language of their home country or have family ties there.”
She recalled a case of a man from Ecuador who was driving without a license in Ohio, where it’s illegal to get a license without documents. “He was cited and because he was undocumented, he was arrested and transferred from Ohio, away from his wife and two-year-old son, to El Paso. He didn’t qualify for any legal remedy. He didn’t get to say goodbye to his son. After five years in the U.S., he had no goodbyes, no closure, no legal remedy,” she said sadly.
When people are ordered deported by an immigration judge, they are barred for 10 years from applying for admission to the United States, Landau said. “Sometimes there are humanitarian forms of relief available – for example, if they have been victims of crime, domestic violence or suffered from abuse/neglect, as in the case of children,” Landau said.
Individuals will try to gain legal status through family-based options, if they have a qualifying relative providing them with the legal means, or they may try to get a petition from an employer, she said.
Sometimes immigrants in deportation proceedings are granted voluntary departure, Landau said. “This form of relief allows individuals time to collect their belongings before they have to depart. If they depart the country within the period of time specified by the judge, they aren’t subject to the 10 year bar,” she said.
For those who are considered to have “unlawful presence” in the U.S. for six months to a year, when they leave, they are barred from seeking admission for three years. For those here unlawfully for one year or more, the penalty is a 10 year bar, she said.
“Expedited removal sometimes takes place for those caught at the border. In these cases, the person receives a deportation order without a hearing in front of an immigration judge and they are barred from seeking admission for five years,” Landau said.
A stipulated order of removal, she explained, takes place when the immigrant agrees to deportation and waives their right to a hearing and a judge reviews and approves the immigrant’s stipulated order, Landau said.
If it sounds difficult, to understand, it is. “Even attorneys who don’t practice immigration law don’t understand all aspects of it,” she said.
What makes the situation more perilous for the immigrants is that the process looks “deceivingly simple,” Landau said. “Anyone can download an immigration form from the web. But, the questions can have serious implications if the individual is not aware of the ramifications,” she said.
She said that those who apply not knowing they’re ineligible can be deported, as well. People think they can petition for themselves. They hire notarios to do the paperwork, but they aren’t licensed to practice law. If there’s no way to remedy an error, an individual will end up in deportation proceedings.
Getting through the immigration process is costly and helps fund Homeland Security, the recipient federal agency. To file a relative petition is $355, Landau said. “If the individual is approved, to apply for a green card costs $1,100. Plus, each member of the family must have a medical exam, which costs several hundred dollars per person.”
Attorney fees generally run several thousand per person for residency, although some attorneys might pro-rate for a family.
What’s most costly is deportation defense. “The cases are complicated and require travel and high stakes. Fees run between $5,000 and $20,000,” she said. This is where the importance of her work comes in. The New Mexico State Bar wants all attorneys to do 50 hours of pro bono work per year. “If they become engaged in this as students, they may wish to continue to do so once they graduate,” Landau said.
Landau said that the human side of the equation creates another set of circumstances. “It is difficult just to focus on immigration law when there are so many other social issues that affect families with relatives in deportation proceedings,” she said. She has to focus on what she can and lets immigrants know about other agencies that can help with issues such as access to health care, education questions, social service and psychological issues.
She said that she advises immigrants to make contingency plans in case they get picked up and deported. Organizations such as El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos in Albuquerque and Somos un Pueblo Unido in Santa Fe, tell them about how to arrange for someone to have power of attorney. “They need to make sure someone with legal status can handle their property and care for their children if they are detained by immigration officials or deported,” Landau said.
Landau sees a strong need for case managers to provide holistic support and resources. And she’s frustrated by limited legal remedies and resources.
By 2008, Landau has acquired the knowledge and networking to make a difference, but she’s still just one person…and the system she’s trying to move is both monolithic and unfriendly. She uses her time now to educate the next generation of immigration attorneys. She’s created two classes in the law school where students get the opportunity to practice immigration law.
She oversees the work of the students – about eight in a class. She is the attorney of record on each case, but the students get to represent the clients in court. She is teaching an Immigration Practicum for the second time, teaching it for the first time last fall. “It’s a hybrid class where student engage real cases with real clients to receive substantive training in the law,” Landau said.
She limits class size so each case gets the attention it needs. And because the clients receive student representation, the services are free to the clients, while the students get an understanding of the practical application of the law, she said.
“I appreciate the UNM School of Law providing an opportunity for students to get their hands on real legal work,” Landau said. She added that the class is part of a growing trend at the law school to offer hybrid clinical classes and provide students with more opportunities to assist in the representation of real clients.
In the spring, she started a class that focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law. “Immigration and criminal law are intertwined and criminal defense attorneys need to understand the immigration consequences of crimes and vice versa. This is one of the most complicated areas of immigration law,” she said. And, she added, it is the duty of criminal attorneys to explain the immigration consequences of a crime. Other legal matters often impact immigration cases, as well, including adoption and divorce proceedings.
She and her students interviewed clients at the jail and analyzed cases. “Immigrants can be deported just for being undocumented, but a criminal conviction can affect whether or not they will be permitted to seek admission in the future. Also, many immigrants with green cards don’t realize that they can be placed in deportation proceedings due to a criminal conviction. Before they agree to a plea agreement, they need to understand what the consequences are of that decision,” Landau said.
Immigration law is now more complicated to decipher than the tax code. These fresh, wet-behind-the-ears attorneys who desire to serve this overworked, overlooked and underrepresented population, have their work cut out for them. And they still have to study for tests and prepare briefs.
The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform Act created much more stringent and draconian immigration enforcement measures, she said. Landau noted that the law has become so strict that there is no room for discretion when the court is moved by individual cases. “I wish there were a legal remedy for so many wonderful, hard working people who come to me looking for assistance, but don’t qualify for any of the forms of relief available under the current law,” she said.
Landau is left with questions for those deported and those left behind. What happens to those who are deported, particularly if they don’t speak the language of their home country and don’t have relatives to support them? What are the costs for a family that has been ripped apart? What happens to families that lose their primary breadwinner? Do these families end up on public assistance? What happens when people are deported and they don’t speak the language?
People who are returned to their countries of origin often are at a loss and isolated. “We’ve heard stories of people who are tattooed being perceived as gang members and ostracized in their communities,” Landau said. In some countries, when people are deported, the public assumes that they have committed a serious crime. “Yet, in my experience, the vast majority of people are in removal proceedings due to an immigration violation, not the conviction of a crime,” she said.
The hostile political environment doesn’t do much to improve immigrant situations. “A policy change has taken place that has reduced workforce raids, but ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers are working closely with jails to identify undocumented people. As a result, we’re seeing increased numbers being placed in deportation hearings,” Landau said.
Of all the changes that Landau could make to improve the lot for immigrants, she said, “I hope to improve access to representation for low-income immigrants in deportation proceedings. The stakes are too high and the law is too complicated for people to present their case to an immigration judge without assistance.”
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at October 31, 2009 10:33 AM