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Michigan immigration court help desk shuts down with stop-work order from DOJ

justice lawyer / judge gavel working with legal documents in a court room
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justice lawyer / judge gavel working with legal documents in a court room

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a stop-work order this week, halting legal access programs offered in immigration courts across the country, including in Michigan.

These programs include Immigration Court Helpdesks and Legal Orientation Programs.

The order was issued in an email to federally funded legal service providers, and comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s promises of mass deportations.

Ruby Robinson, a senior managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said Friday that these now-halted programs have historically taught thousands of unrepresented, non-detained noncitizens how to make informed decisions about their deportation court proceedings, and even assisted some immigrants in successfully winning asylum claims.

Without such legal services, he said, the due process rights of people facing immigration hearings are fundamentally impacted.

“It’s disheartening and disappointing that we are unable to provide these services in the same way right now,” said Robinson. “I hope that this stop work order is lifted right away, because now more than ever, these services are needed.”

“At the heart of [these legal services], they promote and ensure access to justice, and ensure the promise of everybody having the ability to present their case on equal footing,” Robinson said. “Removing them or stopping work on them will have critical longstanding consequences.”

This year, there are over 31,000 people in deportation proceedings within the Detroit immigration courts — double the number of cases last year. Robinson said without legal service providers in immigration courts, immigration court proceedings could also become less efficient.

Isabel Gil is a senior at the University of Michigan. She is from Ada, Michigan–outside of Grand Rapids–where she previously worked as a newsroom intern for WGVU.
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