Posters inside the courts offering legal assistance from immigrants have been deleted, replaced by those who encourage them to “self-work”.
The assistance service for children who once was in one of the many corridors of the West Los Angeles immigration court no longer works.
And the waiting room is empty where the families of children – most who do not speak English or who had never been in a courtroom – gathered for a rudimentary lesson on the legal system before their first appearance before a judge.
“There is no aid anywhere,” said Moral Morals, a 28 -year -old Salvadoran who appeared Tuesday at the West Angeles Immigration Short in South Bay.
The Trump administration has ended a $ 28 million contract with non -profit organizations that provided a range of legal aid to thousands of immigrants in California and beyond – just as it has infused $ 150 billion in immigration and border application.
Lawyers who have been paid to provide basic legal information disappear from the courthouses which have become new tools for the repression of the immigration of the administration. Immigrants are terrified by the fact that going to court will mean expulsion.
In the past two months, once bipartisan programs such as immigration help offices or legal orientation programs for people in detention have been completely cut or taken up by the government.
Morales, who asks for asylum after fled violent gangs in Salvador, said the judicial system can be confusing and that pro Bono lawyers do not take business. Finding basic information has been difficult, he said.
“It does not seem to me an accident that the government expelled the legal service providers who provide basic information and support for people in court, then began to arrest and expel people in court,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, a lawyer who supervises these programs for Acacia Center for Justice, a national umbrella for other non -profit organizations service.
This month, groups that provide legal services to immigrants have been submitted to another hit, when the US district judge Randolph Moss in Washington judged that the Trump administration could interrupt contracts with them and provide these services internally. The decision is appealBut defense groups say that decades of work are dismantled because the administration seeks to cut more ways to legal immigration.
“This means that people are picked up and detained and expelled without any kind of regular procedure or really a means of accessing the basic rights of legal information to help them understand their situation and help them defend themselves,” said Van Hofwegen.
The Ministry of Justice and the Executive Immigration Review Office have refused an interview, but Hawks immigration says that those facing expulsion are entitled to a lawyer, but taxpayers should not have to pay.
“American taxpayers, who are already carrying out under unreasonable charges, should not cover the massive costs of legal aid programs which do not make unreasonably and unnecessarily procedures for dismissal,” said Matthew O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for the reform of American immigration.
“During the decission of these programs, Eoir did nothing but eliminate the expenses of very doubtful legality in the first place.
The government is no longer provided by the government, a representation for children and an orientation for the families of children in the deportation procedure.
The government said it would take over an orientation program for detained persons and for minors’ guards. Immigration defenders say that the programs offered are so sweetened that it was as if they had been “finished functionally”.
Van Hofwegen said that it had not seen any sign of the new promised government programs, but that detention facilities – in isolated state parties with few immigration lawyers – meet and that conditions deteriorate.
She noted that even if the orientation program for people who take care of immigrant children were active, people are increasingly afraid of coming to the immigration court or talking to immigration officials, as new services will probably need.
The programs had offered a small stay in a complex legal system that promotes those who can hire a lawyer. Low -income immigrants often cannot afford a lawyer and do not know several times if they have a strong legal matter or could give up better.
Immigrants for unleated asylum without lawyer prevailed in 19% of their cases, according to a 2024 Congress reportWhile those with a lawyer prevailed in 60% of them.
Evelyn Cedeño-Naik, a lawyer for the Immigrant Immigrant Rights project, who headed a legal assistance service in Los Angeles and the Orange County immigration courts, said the calls have been poured to the office.
“The contracts have been terminated, but the need is still there,” she said. “People are very, very frightened. We see it every day. ”
One of her customers, a mother with a 4 -year -old child, was in the middle of her asylum request when she was suddenly arrested and separated from her child.
“Fortunately, there is at least another person who can take care of his child,” said Cedeño-Naik. “But they are separated.”
The woman now has a lawyer.
The rules of immigration courses change daily. Administration has cut legal paths So that thousands of immigrants stay in the United States, ending temporary protection status for some immigrants from Afghanistan and Cameroon, while pushing to end other countries like Haiti. Government lawyers ask judges to reject business to accelerate expulsion. Asylum cases that could have been heard thrown without hearing. And families who had active cases and who regularly registered with US immigration and customs officials are arrested.
Cedeño-Naik said that everyone, including lawyers, lies in the reason why the legal system “is used in this way”. And now, basic legal services intended to help people in what is often the most stressful and substantial moments of their lives has disappeared.
The group continued to provide online legal assistance in the hope of reaching as many people as possible, and also has services without appointments. And she said, it is now practical with agents who regularly stop the people of the courthouse.
“We are trying to offer these options to individuals,” she said. “We know that obtaining information is so important.”
