We call on all Pima County communities to make the Justice for All Initiative a reality. Legal representation will be provided to any Pima County indigent person facing immigration deportation.
Why? Because no one should stand alone before the terror of separation of their family, of permanent banishment from their home.
We must stand with our neighbors, co-workers, friends. They have lived in Pima County 16.4 years, earn a median of $22,500 per year, and 80% of them live in mixed status families, U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, DACA (Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals), and noncitizens. We interact with our neighbors every day at school, at work, at church, where we socialize because they are fully integrated into our communities. They carry their weight as taxpayers, consumers, workers, business owners and as responsible residents. We do not want our neighbors’ families torn apart, thrown into the chaos and trauma that deportations cause. And families facing immigration arrest, detention and court face hard financial losses, a median of $9,228.44, costs that spread out to the whole community. (Boyce, Launius, UArizona, 2019)
Universal representation, institutionalized in a public defender model, ensures that all indigent Pima County residents have a fair opportunity to stop their deportation, to keep their family together. Most non-citizens have a good basis for remaining in this country. But most persons appear without legal representation in Immigration Court confronting trained professional government attorneys in extremely complex legal proceeding. Immigration Court is not traffic court. Only 3% of those appearing alone before Immigration Court will win their case. Those persons appearing with an attorney have a 10 times better chance to win their case-in fact 62% of those with an attorney will win some type of legal relief. In the latest statistics the Tucson Immigration Court in 2019 processed a total of 22,677 cases in which only 4,618 had counsel and 18,059 did not have a lawyer! (Vera Institute & TRAC Immigration, Syracuse)
Because of this brutal injustice, more and more places throughout the United States are enacting universal representation within their governmental legal structures. These local cities and counties find that not only do they protect the constitutional rights of their residents but these communities benefit overall from keeping families together. We must do the right thing in Pima County and institutionalize equal justice for our neighbors to have a fair day in court and celebrate their continued contributions to our communities.
