As Nicole Rodriguez, a paralegal assisting survivors of domestic violence, stood up to leave a New Jersey courtroom, she saw a woman crying.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to find an attorney and no one\u2019s listening to me,\u201d Rodriguez recalls the woman telling the judge in Spanish. Rodriguez later learned the woman\u2014an immigrant\u2014was married to an abusive U.S. citizen and had fled her home with her son.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt’s so depressing when you’re a lawyer and you go into immigration court and you see how many people don’t have representation,\u201d Michele Pistone, a law professor at Villanova University, explains. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like they\u2019re on this assembly line and we say that we\u2019re giving them \u2018process,\u2019 but they don\u2019t understand what\u2019s happening,\u201d she says.<\/p>\r\n
In 1958, the Department of Justice (DOJ) established the Recognition & Accreditation (R&A) Program for precisely this reason\u2014to increase legal representation for low-income immigrants, according to the American Bar Association. The Program certifies accredited representatives, non-lawyers who can represent immigrants in court. Accredited representatives must work at non-profits designated as recognized organizations.<\/p>\r\n
Despite the program\u2019s 66 year history, there are still 1,413 undocumented people in the U.S. for every charitable legal professional, according to the Center for Migration Studies (CMS). In New Jersey, that number increases to 2,687 undocumented people per legal professional.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Rodriguez, who works at a New Jersey non-profit, is one of those accredited representatives\u2014taking on over 60 cases at a time. Immigrants in removal proceedings who have legal representation are 15 times more likely to seek relief, and 5.5 times more likely to obtain relief, according to a study published by the University of Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very much a program that has been in the shadows,\u201d Pistone explains. Pistone has heard from former students who\u2019ve become accredited that some officers at USCIS\u2014which conducts site visits for the R&A Program\u2014have never heard of an accredited representative. \u201cI\u2019ve heard of judges who\u2019ve never heard of an accredited rep,\u201d she adds.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
There are currently 9 million immigration cases pending at USCIS, and 3 million at EOIR, Robyn Lieberman, Associate Director of the Migration and Refugee Protection Strategic Initiative Group, says. But as of October 2024, there are only 2,561 accredited representatives working at 875 recognized organizations, nationally. \u201cIt\u2019s an underutilized tool in the representation crisis,\u201d Lieberman says. \u201cThe Program has been on the books since 1958,\u201d she continues, \u201cand there\u2019s never been more than 2,500 at a time.\u201d Why has the number of accredited representatives stagnated despite the growing need for migrants who lack representation?<\/p>\r\n
To become an accredited representative, a prospective representative submits an application with their recognized organization to the DOJ. Rodriguez says, in all, her accreditation took about three months.<\/p>\r\n
But when Rodriguez applied for accreditation, she had no idea how long the process would take. The DOJ provides no such information.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
In 2022, backlogs for accredited representatives reached 12 to 18 months, according to Lieberman. \u201cIt is impossible for somebody to put their career on hold for that long,\u201d Lieberman says. \u201cIt’s impossible for organizations to keep open cases that long.\u201d In addition, funding for non-profit organizations often depends on quotas that measure how many cases they process.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cThat\u2019s basically shutting down the program,\u201d Lieberman says.<\/p>\r\n