Do immigration law detainees have meaningful access to counsel and what role does geography play in gaining access? Anil Kalhan looks at the issue at Dorf on Law. First paragraph:
Among the more striking comments at the event convened last week in New Orleans by Human Rights First, Dialogues on Detention: Lessons from Criminal Justice Reform for Immigration Detention, were those by Louisiana State University Law School Professor Ken Mayeaux, who directs the school’s immigration clinic. In the day's final panel, on access to counsel, Mayeaux painted a grim picture concerning the ability of noncitizens detained within Louisiana – whose immigration detention beds comprise 6 percent of the total number of ICE detention beds in the country, but 90 percent of whose detainees have been transferred from out of state – to obtain legal representation, either for bond hearings or to defend against removal itself. He offered up the Oakdale Federal Detention Center for particular scorn. Back in the 1980s, he said, "someone had the brilliant idea to build a 900-bed detention facility in the middle of nowhere." Today, in practice, Mayeaux asserted, “there is no access to counsel at Oakdale.”
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