Lawyers can search for unaccompanied immigrant children's cases through new ABA project
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Asylum-seekers who have legal representation have a five times greater chance of winning their case. That’s the motivation behind Pro Bono Matters for Children Facing Deportation, an online platform launched Thursday that connects volunteer lawyers across the country with unaccompanied immigrant children who have been detained by the federal government or released to family during deportation proceedings.
“Until children in deportation proceedings have the right to appointed counsel at public expense, pro bono attorneys are a key support to the legal service organizations that provide this critical representation,” ABA President Bob Carlson said in a press release.
The website is operated by the ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy, a project based in Houston that provides training, technical assistance and collaboration opportunities to pro bono attorneys and legal services providers who represent children in immigration proceedings. It will compile cases from legal aid and pro bono programs nationwide and allow interested attorneys to search them by geographic location, case type and posting organization.
The ABA’s South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, or ProBAR, which provides legal information, pro se assistance and pro bono representation to unaccompanied immigrant children and adults, and the Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans also are assisting with the online platform.
It was developed by legal technology company SavvySuit and is funded by the Vera Institute of Justice.
More information is available at cilacademy.org/pro-bono.
Attorneys who want to volunteer can contact [email protected].
See also:
ABA Journal: “Are you an attorney who wants to get involved at the border? The ABA offers ways to do it”
