Justice Center News
The Justice Center News blog features our advocacy on issues affecting low-income New Yorkers today and the latest CBJC happenings. For press releases, click here. For publications, click here.
Justice Center’s Lynn Kelly Testifies Before New York City Council on Immigrant Detention
by CBJC Staff December 14, 2011
City Bar Justice Center Executive Director Lynn M. Kelly testified on December 13th before the New York City Council’s Committee on Immigration on the topic of “Oversight–Treatment of NYC’s Immigrants in Detention Centers.”
Kelly’s testimony was based largely on the Justice Center’s experience counseling detainees at the Varick Street detention facility beginning about three years ago, at a pro bono clinic set up by the Justice Center along with The Legal Aid Society and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Since the closing of Varick in 2010, the project has adapted and, working with volunteer lawyers, the Justice Center has interviewed more than 400 detained New Yorkers and obtained the release and restoration to their families of more than a dozen.
“The Justice Center starts from the proposition that the biggest problem with immigration detention is the lack of counsel,” said Kelly in her submitted testimony. “To be clear, there is no right to government assigned counsel for anyone facing removal, including those with green cards (lawful permanent residents). According to a recent study by the Vera Institute of Justice, an immigrant with a lawyer who has been released from detention or never been detained has a 74% success rate in a removal hearing, compared to a dismal 3% success rate for immigrants who were detained and lacked counsel. Immigrants who obtain release are more likely to obtain their own attorneys so the goal should be to decrease the numbers of non-violent offenders who are detained and increase counsel for those who are detained, to ensure that all of their legal defenses are raised. In this regard, the recent city funding for additional immigration attorneys at the defenders and domestic violence programs is a very good idea.”
Kelly’s complete testimony can be read here.
Recent posts
-
June 11, 2024
NELP and Partners Serve 40 Small Business Owners For National Small Business Month
In honor of National Small Business Month 2024, the City Bar Justice Center’s Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Proj...
Read more -
April 22, 2024
NELP and Partners Empower Small Businesses on Annual Financial Institution Pro Bono Day
The City Bar Justice Center’s Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project (NELP) was proud to participate in the 5th A...
Read more -
April 19, 2024
Statement of the Executive Director of the City Bar Justice Center Opposing IOLA Diversion and the Undermining of Complementary Public Service Programs
The City Bar Justice Center strongly opposes the inclusion in the FY2024-25 New York State budget of an eleventh-h...
Read more