SF legal experts worried over growing waitlist of people in need of attorneys for deportation court
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Bay Area nonprofits are sounding the alarm about a growing waitlist of people in need of immigration representation with mass deportations promised by the new Trump administration.
Eleven years ago, a single mom who asked us to blur her face and keep her identity private fled El Salvador. She recalls gang members threatening to kill her and her disabled son.
VIDEO: North Bay nonprofit helps immigrants prepare for Trump deportation plans
"I was afraid to lose my life and my son. That is why I came here," said the woman.
She is now afraid of mass deportations under the new administration even though she is just one step away from becoming a U.S. citizen.
"Even though I have a green card, I'm still afraid that I could get deported because laws change and with this new president you never know what could happen," said the woman.
Stories like this one are flooding nonprofits like Open Door Legal where many attorneys are sounding the alarm months before projected immigration operations. Many are concerned that thousands of undocumented immigrants won't have legal representation.
"There is a coalition of nonprofits with a waiting list of 1,200 people who are in deportation and immigration court," said Fabiano Valerio, Senior Immigration Attorney at Open Door Legal.
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"If an undocumented immigrant doesn't have legal representation, are they still required to go in front of an immigration judge?" asked ABC7 News reporter Luz Pena.
"Yes. They are required. In fact, if they don't appear before an immigration judge it's very likely that they will be removed and deported from the country," said Valerio. "Unlike in criminal proceedings an immigrant does not have a legal right of state funded legal representation."
Legal experts are also noticing another concerning factor: not enough judges.
"The immigration court system in the United States is broken. There are not enough immigration judges to handle the large number of people that are in the backlog," said Bill Hing, Professor Law and Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco.
Professor Hing believes funding will be imperative.
"Providing funding for representation because right now some people have been waiting four, six, seven years for their immigration cases and when people are coming through the border fleeting violence, they have a right to a hearing for their asylum cases as well," said Professor Hing.
According to the Migration Policy Institute there are 43,000 undocumented immigrants in San Francisco and all of them could be at risk of deportation.
