Border Backup

• Author: Lorelei Laird
• Pages: 70-70

70 || ABA JOURNAL APRIL 2019

Your ABA

PHOTO BY OZZY TREVINO/U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

Your ABA

Border

Backup

$150,000 grant will

bolster ABA’s pro bono

immigration work

By Lorelei Laird

Stephen N. Zack knows firsthand

how tough it is on kids to be sepa-

rated from their parents. When he

was 13, his family tried to flee Cuba—

and got taken o a plane by a Cuban

spy agency. Each member of the fam-

ily was held in a separate room over-

night. They would be reunited the

next morning and eventually permit-

ted to leave Cuba, but he didn’t know

that at the time.

“It was for a very short period of

time, [but] it was tremendously

painful,” says Zack, who went on

to become president of the ABA in

2010-11, president of the American

Bar Endowment and a partner at

Boies Schiller Flexner in Miami. “We

didn’t know whether we’d ever see

each other again.”

That’s one reason Zack started

pushing for the ABA to increase its

pro bono work with asylum seek-

ers and separated immigrant fami-

lies. During the 2019 ABA Midyear

Meeting in Las Vegas, the ABA’s

Board of Governors approved a one-

time American Bar Endowment

Opportunity Grant of $150,000

from the ABE to the Commission on

Immigration.

The money is expected to fund

the hiring of a pro bono coordinator

to manage what Zack hopes will be

many new volunteers.

Having counsel makes an enor-

mous dierence in immigration

court, Zack says. A study in New York

found that when nonjailed immi-

grants aren’t represented, only 13

percent win their cases. With repre-

sentation, the success rate shoots up

to 74 percent. (Both rates are lower

for immigrants held in detention.)

Even if the immigrant doesn’t have a

case to stay, Zack says, representation

will help get that case finished sooner

and more cheaply.

“I woke up thinking about it and

called Bob Carlson and Judy Perry

Martinez and said, ‘We can do some-

thing about this,’ ” says Zack, naming

the current ABA president and presi-

dent-elect. “We have lots of resources

if we get people out of their silos to

resolve these issues.”

The issue is also personal to

Carlson.

“Last summer, I joined with other

ABA volunteers on the border in

Texas,” Carlson says. “We spent sev-

eral days working pro bono with

detained people who were seeking

asylum. It was an emotional expe-

rience. I can tell you firsthand that

there are a lot of people there—men,

women, children, families—who are

escaping life-threatening violence

at home and who desperately need

legal counsel. Most unaccompanied

minors and asylum seekers do not

have lawyers to help them, and that

often makes the dierence between

being able to stay in the U.S. and

being deported.”

Zack envisions mobilizing a lot

of dierent arms of the ABA whose

lawyers are well-placed to help.

In addition to the Commission on

Immigration, he says the Senior

Lawyers Division can contribute

experienced lawyers who have

the time to give back, and the

Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights

& Responsibilities may have an inter-

est in the subject matter.

“Our paid sta at ProBAR in Texas

and the Immigrant Justice Project in

San Diego do incredible work in dif-

ficult circumstances, but they need

help,” Carlson says. “I’m a strong

believer in the power of pro bono

work to change lives—clients’ lives,

of course, but also lawyers’ lives.

I’m grateful to the American Bar

Endowment for helping us hire a

coordinator of pro bono volunteers to

assist unaccompanied minors and asy-

lum seekers who are looking for a bet-

ter life.”

Zack is also hoping that the

Hispanic National Bar Association,

in which he’s been active, could help

with translators so that attorneys

aren’t discouraged by a language bar-

rier from volunteering.

Although immigration currently is

a key political issue, Zack says this is

not a political move but an attempt to

meet a humanitarian need.

“It happens to be the major human-

itarian issue facing the country right

now,” he says. “And this doesn’t have

anything to do with whether you like

the wall or don’t like the wall. There

are thousands and thousands of peo-

ple waiting for due process.” Q

Border Patrol agents inte rcept immigrants who t ried to enter the U.S . after crossing the Rio

Grande River in McA llen, Texas, in November.