Representation in Removal Proceedings

Millions of immigrants in the United States are facing threats of mass deportation under the second Trump Administration. At the same time, the Administration has sought to end federal programs aimed at providing basic information and guidance to immigrants in removal proceedings. In addition, large numbers of immigration judges have been fired from immigration courts that already face massive backlogs. Amidst these upheavals, deportation defense lawyers have come to occupy a more central role than ever in ensuring fairness and due process in immigration courts.

Are certain groups of immigrants more likely to obtain legal representation than others? Among those who obtain representation, are the effects of representation on case outcomes greater for some groups than others? To answer these questions, we conducted a systematic analysis of over two million removal proceedings that were completed in U.S. immigration courts between 1998 and 2023. This Article presents three principal findings.

First, we find that criminal record and race are closely associated with the likelihood of obtaining representation. Immigrants are much less likely to be represented if they have criminal charges. We also find striking patterns of racial disparities in representation rates. Hispanic immigrants—regardless of whether they have criminal charges—have substantially lower rates of representation than other immigrant groups.

Second, we find that representation is associated with more favorable case outcomes for all groups of immigrants, but the magnitude of the representation effect varies by criminal record and race. The representation effect is substantially greater for immigrants with criminal charges than those without criminal charges. The representation effect is the greatest for White immigrants with criminal charges and the smallest for Black immigrants without criminal charges. Third, we generally find relatively high degrees of racial concordance between immigrants and their lawyers, but the effect of racial concordance on case outcomes varies by immigrants’ race.

White immigrants with White lawyers obtain more favorable outcomes than White immigrants with non-White lawyers. However, the opposite is true for all non-White immigrants, especially for Black immigrants. Non-White immigrants with same-race lawyers obtain less favorable outcomes than their respective counterparts with different-race lawyers. Taken together, these findings show that criminal record and race are key predictors of whether an individual in removal proceedings obtains legal representation and the effect of representation on case outcomes.