Biden Administration Proposes to Provide Lawyers for Illegal Migrants in the US

As part of its plan, the Biden administration intends to spend millions of dollars on attorneys for illegal immigrants.

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U.S. President Joe Biden speaks before a meeting with Cuban-American leaders and activists in the State Dining Room of the White House.

Biden's Proposed immigration Plan

In a recently published article in MSN News, in his immigration proposal published this week, President Joe Biden suggested that Congress set aside $15 million to pay the expenses of private attorneys for "families and vulnerable people," as well as $23 million for Justice Department-run legal orientation programs.

The idea, which was originally detailed in President Joe Biden's fiscal year 2022 budget, is the first time an administration has suggested paying such a cost; and the White House has not provided any more details. However, this proposed plan gained support and criticism from different groups.

Costs of Legal Representation

According to a research by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, the $15 million in financing would barely cover a few thousand individuals. Attorneys that specialize in immigration law charge between $150 and $300 per hour.

Lora Ries, a senior fellow for homeland security at Heritage, looked into deportation defense expenses last year to put asylum cases in context and found out that each individual paid between $2,000 and $10,000. At the low end of the $2,000 per person range, 7,500 migrants would be able to afford legal representation. Only 1,500 individuals would be insured at the highest level of $10,000 per person.

Moreover, 190,000 individuals illegally crossed the southern border with a family member in the last four months while another 64,000 unaccompanied minors landed in the United States. At the $2,000 rate, paying attorneys for those 250,000 family members; and adults would cost the federal government about $500 million.

Former Federal Immigration Judge Criticized the Proposed Plan

Andrew Arthur, a former federal immigration judge from the York Immigration Court in Pennsylvania, said they talk about providing legal representation to families and vulnerable individuals. We don't really know what that consists of, but it could be just families. It could be just women with children. I don't know. The language is so vague - it's problematic," according to a published article in Yahoo News.

Ries and Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, a group that advocates for tighter immigration controls, cited a section of the Immigration Nationality Act that they claim prohibits the government from paying for legal representation in immigration proceedings.

They emphasized a clause in Section 292 of the law states which reads "in any removal proceedings before an immigration judge and in any appeal proceedings before the Attorney General from any such removal proceedings, the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel, authorized to practice in such proceedings, as he shall choose."

When it comes to immigration issues, which are civil concerns, Ries and Arthur argue that it would be unfair to give taxpayer-funded legal counsel to individuals who are the defendants in other civil situations, such as divorce or rent disputes, according to a published article in Denver Gazzette.

Furthermore, because they spend their own money on attorneys and have money on the line, Arthur believes that immigrants with lawyers are more likely to appear in court. In his opinion, the Biden administration's new action is the first step toward spending much more than $15 million to guarantee that everyone who enters the nation illegally has a greater chance of getting accepted.