CAIR Coalition is excited to announce the launch of its newest initiative: The Crim-Imm Pro Bono Project. The goal of the Project is to defend detained non-citizens from the disproportionate immigration consequences of criminal convictions and expand strategic litigation. Three firms have mobilized to serve as leaders of this cutting-edge project in its pilot phase, Arnold & Porter, Mayer Brown, and Wiley Rein. Together, CAIR Coalition and the firms’ teams will intervene in the criminal-immigration (“crim-imm”) pipeline by increasing access to counsel trained in the intersection of criminal and immigration law.
Non-citizens — many whom are long time legal permanent resident green card holders — are increasingly detained and deported due to a criminal conviction. Indeed, here in the DC area, approximately half of the detained immigrants CAIR Coalition serves face the double punishments of detention and deportation due to involvement in the criminal justice system, after almost always first completing their criminal sentence. As there is no right to government appointed counsel in immigration court, the vast majority of detained immigrants are unrepresented and thus rarely make the complex crim-imm legal arguments needed to challenge the basis of their deportation.
But not all crimes are created equal. Often, successful arguments can be made that the law does not permit the government to deport an immigrant based on a certain state criminal offense—particularly as this cutting-edge area of the law is fast developing. However, there are not enough lawyers who are trained in the intersection of immigration and criminal law to defend detained immigrants caught up in the crim-imm pipeline.
As an initial intervention to meet this overwhelming need, CAIR Coalition recently launched “The Crim-Imm Pro Bono Project” to train pro bono attorneys in making crim-imm arguments and amplify strategic test case representation on behalf of detained immigrants with convictions. This project has been possible thanks to the Arnold & Porter Foundation’s generous sponsorship and support of an Equal Justice Works fellowship to develop the project.
In this pilot phase of the project’s formal launch, three major law firms have valorously stepped up to defend immigrants: Arnold & Porter, Mayer Brown, and Wiley Rein. We are grateful for this outpouring of support and proud to work in a legal community willing to stand up and defend non-citizens paying a disproportionately high cost for a past mistake. After several months of planning and preparation, the Crim-Imm Pro Bono Project kicked off in February 2016 with an inaugural training of teams of attorneys formed by the three firms, hosted by Arnold & Porter. This month also marked a special moment for the Project which we have long awaited: placing the first case off the ground, which is being led by the team formed at Mayer Brown. As the Project grows, we are overjoyed that fewer detained immigrants facing criminal grounds of deportation will go to court alone and that many others will likely benefit from the resulting ripple effects in the law.
