The San Francisco Public Defender's Office announced that a new legal team—tasked with defending local residents who are locked in detention and facing deportation charges—is launching today.
The unit started their work right away: today, they went to Federal Immigration Court at 630 Sansome St. at 1pm to meet their new clients and represent them before Judge Scott Simpson.
To fund the program, the Public Defender’s Office used $200,000 in salary savings to hire three new attorneys and one paralegal through the end of this fiscal year, a deal brokered by District 1 Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer and Mayor Ed Lee in March. It's expected that each attorney will cover a caseload of about 50 clients under the program.
San Francisco's public defender's office is one of only three in
the country to currently represent immigrants being held for deportation
proceedings. New York City and Alameda County both have similar
programs.
Francisco Ugarte, managing attorney of the Public Defender's Immigration Unit said that unlike criminal court, non-citizens in immigration detention do not have the right to a court-appointed counsel.
Approximately half of the 1,500 detained immigrants with court dates in San Francisco have been in the U.S. for more than a decade. Many—more than 50 percent—have one or more close family members who are citizens.
“These are longtime residents who work, attend school, and contribute to our city,” Ugarte said. “Without this program, most would be forced to defend themselves in court against trained government lawyers.”
"People in detention without an attorney are cut off from the outside world and almost always deported," Anoop Prasad, staff attorney for the Immigrant Rights Program at the Asian Law Caucus told us. "We're extremely glad to see the San Francisco Public Defender's office roll out its immigration unit today."
"The number of people in immigration detention seeking legal representation has overwhelmed the small number of non-profit service providers for decades," he added.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi noted that the timing of the Immigration Units implementation is not coincidental. Since President Donald Trump signed an executive order prioritizing immigration enforcement, immigration arrests have risen 38 percent nationwide.
“Mass deportation is against our core values as Americans and San Franciscans,” Adachi said. “Due process still means something in this country, and we are not going to let the federal government ship off our friends and neighbors without a fight.”
