Reprinted from the Connecticut Law Tribune, Monday, July 28, 2008 …

Reprinted from the Connecticut Law Tribune, Monday, July 28, 2008




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                                                                      Autumn Pinette


Christopher George, executive director of the New Haven-based Integrated Refugee and
Immigration Services, said immigrants have less than a one in 10 chance of winning in
immigration court without a lawyer.
'I Was Shocked By What I Saw'

Refugee agency fills need for lawyers at deportation hearings

In 1982, the Episcopal Church founded the New Haven-based Integrated Refugee and
Immigrant Services. These days, Executive Director Christopher George and eight
staffers carry on a tradition of helping refugees and asylum-seekers.

About a year ago, George paid a visit to a federal immigration court and was upset to find
that those facing deportation were often unrepresented by counsel. In response, his
organization has built up a roster of pro bono lawyers, including Michael Stratton, of
Stratton Faxon.

Stratton, an accomplished plaintiff's trial lawyer, was initially a fish out of water in
immigration court. He says the proceedings and terminology are confusing enough for a
trained lawyer who is fluent in English and a nightmare for any unrepresented immigrant.

Last week, George told Senior Writer Thomas B. Scheffey that the volunteer attorneys
are beginning to make a difference.

LAW TRIBUNE:Tell us about your organization.

CHRISTOPHER GEORGE: We're primarily a refugee resettlement agency. We've
been doing it for about twenty-six years. As part of a federally-funded network of
nonprofits, we get about a quarter of our [$700,000 annual budget] from the State
Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.

LAW TRIBUNE: How many people have you helped in this time?

GEORGE: We've helped more than four thousand refugees from all over the world.
Somalia, Ethiopia, Cuba, Bosnia, and recently from Iraq.

LAW TRIBUNE: Tell us about the pro bono program.

GEORGE: Last year, I happened to go to immigration court and sit in on two hours of it.
I was shocked by what I saw. At least five people in that time were not represented by an
attorney at all. I asked one of the regulars, `Doesn't our government have to give these
people a lawyer?' And they said, 'No, only in criminal proceedings. This is immigration,
civil, and we do not provide attorneys.' I was surprised, because the consequences of
deportation could be imprisonment on arrival [in an immigrant's homeland], and perhaps
even torture--the persecution the refugee may have fled in the first place.

I came back and sent out a flurry of e-mails, and the response of my attorney friends was,
`We told you so; this has been going on for years.' We talked about what we can do
about it, and decided that we could have our law school interns monitor the court,
identify immigrants who need lawyers, and then pair them up with pro bono attorneys.
LAW TRIBUNE: And how's it been going?

GEORGE: It's gone very well. I've been really impressed by the number of kind-hearted
and generous attorneys who've really just kind of come out of the woodwork.

LAW TRIBUNE: Who has helped?

GEORGE: The first attorney to help out in this was Jim Swaine, in New Haven. He's
very experienced in criminal law and immigration law. That encouraged others, and
before we knew it, we had a roster of over a dozen lawyers, including Michael Stratton.
He does not have a lot of immigration experience, so we paired him with a mentor, the
director of the program, Nicole Wesley. Nicole and Mike spent hours and hours working
on a case. We did not win. But the point is, the respondent had an attorney, so there was
due process. That's our goal. There's someone working with that respondent, so that even
if they ultimately have to be deported, they get a better deal.

LAW TRIBUNE: What are the chief difficulties of immigration court?

GEORGE: For the respondents, not only is the immigration law terminology very
difficult to understand, it's through a translator. Nowadays, most of the cases are heard
through video links with the prisons. So you go to a courtroom, and instead of seeing a
respondent in person, he's on a TV screen. The sound is always bad....The translator is
brought in by telephone from some other part of the country. There's a time lag in audio
transmission. On top of that, there's [usually] no attorney helping the person sort out the
options. You look around and say, can this be happening here?

The judge tries hard [to be fair and find legal counsel], but the end result usually is they
don't find an attorney, and [the immigrants] end up going to court alone. But we have a
real shot at changing that in Connecticut.