Over the last two years, Managing Partner David Kolko has lead the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)’s Taskforce on Family Detention. He has twice traveled to the so-called “family detention center” in Dilley, Texas to provide pro bono legal representation to detained women and children who are seeking asylum protection in the United States. In this excellent piece in Mother Jones, "Here's the Biggest Immigration Issue that Trump Isn't Talking About,"...

Children in deportation proceedings in immigration court, even those as young as three or four years old, have no right to a government-appointed lawyer. As a result, many children are forced to represent themselves in front of an immigration judge and face deportation to countries where they face abuse, human trafficking, and targeting by gangs and criminal groups. Most of the children appearing before our immigration courts are eligible for protections...

In a decision issued this past Friday, a federal judge in the District Court for the Central District of California found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was in violation of a court settlement agreement due to its practice of detaining families who were apprehended as part of the “surge” of asylum-seekers crossing the Southern border since last summer. The Judge also strongly admonished DHS for the “deplorable” conditions in...

Last month, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson made a major announcement regarding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy of detaining women and children asylum-seekers from Central America in family detention centers in remote parts of Texas and New Mexico. Secretary Johnson announced that detained families who have passed the initial step in the asylum process – showing that they have a credible or reasonable fear of persecution in their home...

In July of 2014, as a response to the so-called “surge” of foreign nationals arriving at the southern border, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a directive instructing all U.S. Immigration Courts to prioritize the following removal cases: 1) recently arrived unaccompanied children 2) recently arrived families with children released on an Alternative to Detention program; 3) detained families with children; 4) other detained foreign nationals in removal proceedings. For...