Immigration
Jun. 18, 2002
Pro Bono Lawyers Help Minors in INS Matters
LOS ANGELES - Almost as soon as the 14-year-old boy from Fujian province on mainland China stepped off the plane in Los Angeles, he raised the suspicions of immigration agents.
His story was vague, he was traveling alone, and he came from an area that is notorious for "snakeheads," or human smugglers.
Authorities took him into immigration custody at the Los Padrinos juvenile detention center. Later, they moved him to a shelter in Northern California, then returned him to Los Padrinos.
The teen didn't fare any better at his asylum hearing. A New York attorney represented him by phone and failed to file a timely appeal after the judge denied the claim.
Fortunately, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC, the only agency in Los Angeles that regularly represents minors in immigration detention, took over.
CLINIC staff attorney Sarah Bronstein, who runs the pro bono program in Los Angeles, called Latham & Watkins. The national firm has been at the forefront of supplying lawyers to help unaccompanied minors in immigration detention.
Melissa Pifko, a second-year associate in the Los Angeles office, volunteered to take the case - just days before immigration officials were set to return the teen to his homeland. She filed motions in federal and immigration courts, requesting asylum because of China's harsh one-child-per-family rule. The teen was the second child in the family.
Pifko, who normally handles mergers and acquisitions, health care matters and employment law, said the experience has been invaluable. She filed motions with the Board of Immigration Review, the U.S. Central District and wrote the opening brief for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, authorities again have placed the teen in a shelter in Northern California while his case is being decided. But Pifko said that the outcome appears favorable for him to stay here.
"In addition to just feeling good about helping people who can't help themselves, it gives you so much more responsibility than you usually get as an associate," Pifko said.
This year, for the second time, CLINIC lawyers from Los Angeles and San Francisco participated in a two-day program offered by the Beverly Hills Bar Association to train lawyers to represent minors in immigration detention.
The program, held last Tuesday and Wednesday, included dinner, substantive law training and five hours of MCLE credit - and was free to anyone who agreed to take one case.
"Right now, CLINIC is the only organization on any kind that represents kids on a regular basis in detention by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles, and we have only two lawyers," Bronstein said.
"What that means is that kids go in front of an immigration judge unrepresented if they can't afford a lawyer, and most of them can't," she said. "It drastically increases the likelihood that they will be unsuccessful in their asylum claims."
Beverly Hills Bar Association received a $5,000 grant last year from the American Bar Association that has covered the basic costs of putting on the program. CLINIC donated another $5,000 in matching in-kind training services.
Bert Tigerman, bar association executive director, said the grant was designed to serve as a model to get other bar associations around the country involved in pro bono immigration work.
Susan Mc Rae
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