In 2023, a woman who had already been deported twice was about to be removed from the U.S. for a third time.
The woman, identified only as Ms. R, was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center when a lawyer from San Diego County’s Immigrant Legal Defense Program looked over her case and discovered that she had been a U.S. citizen since 1982.
“The U.S. government had messed up, made a clerical error on their paperwork,” said San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
Lawson-Remer created the Free Legal Defense Program in August 2022 to protect people like Ms. R from unjust deportations.
“This, to me, is such a perfect example of why you need to ensure due process and that the constitution is followed,” she said. “You could have a U.S. citizen being deported.”
To qualify for the program, people must be physically detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center or otherwise in the system — like people released with ankle monitors.
Attorneys and advocates view the program as an added layer of protection for people who could be mistakenly detained by President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operations — particularly U.S. citizens and noncitizens who have a legal right to stay in the United States.
Due process concerns
Participating attorneys follow a universal representation model, meaning they don’t screen out people with previous criminal convictions or other underlying circumstances that could complicate their case.
Lawson-Remer, a lawyer by trade, said the program addresses systemic injustices in the immigration court system. Most notably, immigrants are often left to navigate the system without an attorney — something many people don’t realize.
“In immigration court, even though you have a legal right to counsel, it’s a right in theory because there’s no attorney provided,” Lawson-Remer said.
That means people get deported, not because of the merits of their case or the quality of their evidence, but because they simply don’t understand our complex immigration laws, she added.
Data show that people with legal representation are much less likely to be deported than those without.
Last year, 85% of people facing deportation without a lawyer ended up with removal orders. Meanwhile, only 14% of people with legal representation faced a removal order, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
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That disparity is not surprising to legal experts who say that besides tax law, immigration law is the most complex system in the U.S.
It’s hard enough for professionals to prepare a complicated asylum or deportation case, let alone someone who doesn’t speak English and is not trained in the nuances of immigration law, said Paulina Reyes, a lawyer with the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
“Maybe they miss something in their story that would have been helpful to highlight in their claim,” she said. “Perhaps they thought it wasn’t important at the time.”
Reyes has represented multiple clients through the county’s program program. Although some of her clients are people who crossed the border recently, others have deep roots in the region.
“We see many individuals who are from San Diego, who have lived here for a long time,” she said.
Having a free legal representation program already in place provides some protection for San Diegans who could get caught in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation, she added.
“If we see more expedited removals or ICE raids within our community, we’re able to use this program for anyone who might need an attorney,” she said.
The administration has said federal agents are prioritizing dangerous criminals.
But ICE’s own data show that the administration’s enforcement surge has largely caught immigrants without criminal convictions or criminal charges, according to an analysis from researcher Austin Kocher.
Kocher compared detention rates of three different groups — immigrants with criminal convictions, those with pending criminal charges and those with no criminal histories.
Nationwide, the number of detained immigrants without criminal histories grew the most — from approximately 850 before Trump’s inauguration to more than 2,700 as of Feb. 9.
Republican opposition
The County Board of Supervisors approved the program in May 2021 and formally established it later that year. Both actions passed by a 3-2 vote with Democrat supervisors voting in favor and Republicans opposing.
“To me, this is a federal issue and unfortunately not the financial responsibility of a local county government,” said Supervisor Jim Desmond before his “no” vote.
In 2023, Supervisor Joel Anderson tried to limit the scope of the program by introducing a motion to prevent people with criminal convictions from being eligible for free legal representation.
The motion recognized that the program was originally established with a “merit-blind” case management system to ensure universal representation. Anderson noted that at the time 35 people with criminal convictions had received free legal aid through the program. He didn’t mention that this group accounted for 5% of the total number of people represented by the program.
Anderson’s motion failed. Desmond did not attend the meeting.
Room for growth
When the county officially launched the program in 2022, only 17% of people in San Diego’s immigration court had legal representation. Today, that number is up to 43%, according to Michael Garcia, the county’s Chief Deputy Public Defender and coordinator of the program.
To date, participating attorneys have completed 464 cases. Of those, only 10% have resulted in deportation orders for their clients. That is a significantly lower deportation rate than the national average.
“Having a lawyer kind of meant everything in immigration court and that’s what we aimed to change,” Garcia said.
In fiscal year 2024, 47% of all completed immigration cases around the country ended in deportation orders, according to court data.
Part of Garcia’s job is to recruit more lawyers. Partnerships with the American Bar Association’s Immigration Justice Project and the University of San Diego Law School’s Immigration Law Clinic.
The program started with 12 and is up to more than 40 participating attorneys, he said. But it’s not enough.
“In San Diego, there’s a limited number of resources when it comes to immigration representation,” he said. “There aren’t that many lawyers. People aren’t getting rich doing immigration law.”
Participating attorneys get paid based on the progression of their individual cases, based on certain milestones. The full payment is only issued once that case is closed, according to an annual report.
Each case takes a long time to make its way through the immigration court system, which means that a limited number of participating lawyers are getting bigger and bigger caseloads.
“That creates a lot of challenges in making sure that caseloads aren’t too high and that our lawyers aren’t overworked,” Garcia said. “It’s part of the reason why I’m always looking for lawyers.”
So far, the participating attorneys have been able to manage the growing caseload. However, there may be a point in which monthly intakes would need to be reduced or capped, according to an annual report of the program.
The program cost taxpayers $1.5 million in the 2022-2023 fiscal year and $2.6 million in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to the annual report.
The program is fully funded for the current fiscal year.
Lawson-Remer said there might be a need to increase the program given some of the immigration enforcement policies coming out of Washington D.C.
San Diego County might get some additional funding sooner rather than later. Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that sets aside $25 million for legal groups who are defending people facing deportation.
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