{"id":348982,"date":"2017-05-17T08:06:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T14:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=348982"},"modified":"2017-05-18T15:11:42","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T21:11:42","slug":"immigrants-in-detention-centers-are-often-hundreds-of-miles-from-legal-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/05\/immigrants-in-detention-centers-are-often-hundreds-of-miles-from-legal-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrants in detention centers are often hundreds of miles from legal help"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Immigrant<\/a>

ICE operates many immigrant detention centers across the nation, as this searchable map from the agency’s website shows. Many are far from legal representation from the people being held there.<\/p><\/div>\n

One morning in February, lawyer Marty Rosenbluth set off from his Hillsborough, North Carolina, home to represent two anxious clients in court. He drove about eight hours southwest, spent the night in a hotel and then got up around 6 a.m. to make the final 40-minute push to his destination: a federal immigration court and detention center in the tiny rural Georgia town of Lumpkin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During two brief hearings over two days, Rosenbluth said, he convinced an immigration judge to grant both of his new clients more time to assess their legal options to stay in the United States. Then he got in his car and drove the 513 miles back home.<\/p>\n

“Without an attorney, it’s almost impossible to win your case in the immigration courts. You don’t even really know what to say or what the standards are,” said Rosenbluth, who works for a private law firm and took on the cases for a fee. “You may have a really, really good case. But you simply can’t package it in a way that the court can understand.”<\/p>\n