Undocumented Immigrants Are Lawyering Up

NATIONALJOURNAL — The majority of immigration court cases in 2013 involved immigrants who had legal representation, a reversal from five years ago, according to new data from the federal government. In 2013, 59 percent of those in immigration proceedings had legal representation—that’s a big jump from 2009, when just 39 percent had lawyers. In 2012, a very slim majority of cases had clients with no legal representation. Those figures come from the 2013 statistical yearbook from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, which is part of the Justice Department. Nearly all new cases that came to immigration courts last year were deportation cases. Click through this graphic to see how legal representation in new immigration cases changed over the past five years: [Read More]