Law Students

Ups and Downs

By Andrea

I have my first asylum hearing in court on Friday. I'm going to be ready in the sense that I will know the record and have my questions prepped, but I can't help wishing that I had, oh, watched one of these before trying to do it. There is a lot at stake, it's a difficult case, and I hope my client makes it through emotionally OK. People have been saying nice things to me about how I'm a good person and it'll be good experience even if we lose, and that's all true, but those are all things I'll think months from now, not this week. We're just hoping to get through it OK. I wonder how I'll feel after Friday.

I've been wanting to post and comment about some news stories that relate to immigration and legal services, but they're all such bad news. Like, unrelentingly crappy. A sampler platter:

- ICE decided to terminate their contract with the private Rhode Island detention facility that closed recently because their medical care was just horrific.
- A local ICE agent had sex with a 11-year old street child from Brazil, took pictures, and brought them home.
- On his way out the door, Attorney General Mukasey gutted immigrants' already-limited right to reopen their cases based on ineffective assistance of counsel.
- Illegal reentry misdemeanor prosecutions are choking U.S. Attorney's offices such that prosecutions of organized crime, public corruption, and white collar crime are way down.
- Oh, and legal aid organizations everywhere are  really, really broke and laying off staff just when the need for their services is rising, including most major Boston organizations. (My org is also low on money, although with such a tiny staff, not laying off anyone. It's a really stressful time to try and run a nonprofit.)

These bits of bad news have a way of running into each other. The one nonprofit we referred detainees to in Connecticut laid off the lawyer who took detention cases, but then "luckily" the Rhode Island facility that provided most of her cases was shut down for being horrible. Um, yay? We're all just doing our best.

So while I don't see President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano as perfect, they cannot get to work fast enough. I MEAN SERIOUSLY. It is a mess over here. JANET! HELP!

BUT.

I went grocery shopping today, and on my way back to the car, in a snowy puddle, I found a hundred dollar bill! Can you believe that? I didn't know what to do. I even called Dan to ask if there was really any reasonable way to handle it besides putting it in my bag and going home. There wasn't, really (there was no one around.)

So....wow. Not that that solved any problems with the legal system, exactly. But it did make me think a little more optimistically about Friday.  Because you never know.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).