SAN DIEGO — The county of San Diego has proposed a new $5 million program that will give free legal aid to illegal immigrants facing deportation.
“The lack of appointed counsel means that tens of thousands of people each year go unrepresented, including asylum-seekers, longtime legal residents, immigration parents or spouses of U.S. citizens, and even children,” wrote San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer in a memo. “They are left to defend themselves in an adversarial setting and notoriously complex system against the United States government.”
Lawson-Remer placed the matter on the agenda for a Tuesday board meeting, where it will likely pass. The county has a 3-2 Democratic majority that took power after the November election.
California, which is a sanctuary state, currently has more than 2.5 illegal immigrants that cost taxpayers $25 billion a year, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The majority of the funding ($8.1 billion) is spent on education. Medical and welfare benefits are the second-costliest category at $7.4 billion.
“This is just another example of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors careening toward the far deep left,” said Mayor Bill Wells of the city of El Cajon, which is 17 miles east of downtown San Diego. “The board seems more interested in providing help to those who are not legally in the country than they are in mental healthcare and other mandates to protect Americans. I was at a meeting with the board today talking about the fact that we can’t afford a psychiatric response team to cover the whole county.”
Wells said the county has “a couple” of teams that include mental health experts who accompany police officers to volatile situations involving participants needing psychiatric help. The teams help diffuse conditions but are rarely available because of the high demand.
If Lawson-Remer’s proposal passes, the $5 million will be taken out of the general fund and directed toward the county’s Public Defender’s Office to provide the services. At least $500,000 of the funding will be mandated for translation services. Staff members are directed to return in 90 days with a plan for a permanent program that will cost “a minimum” of $5 billion annually, according to the memo.
“Exercising their constitutional right to being represented by an immigration attorney gives immigrants dignity, hope, and the ability to return to their affairs and continue contributing to their communities while their cases proceed through the courts,” the memo read.
However, Lawson-Remer is wrong in her assertion that immigrants have a constitutional right to an immigration attorney, said FAIR spokesman Ira Mehlman. The only constitutional right to an attorney involves participants in criminal court, and custody hearings are a civil matter.
“For any of us engaged in a civil case, like the IRS taking you to tax court, you don’t have a right to a taxpayer-paid defense,” Mehlman said. “It’s up to you to fight it in court. When lawyers become involved, they know how to game the system and run the clock. They invent new claims allowing the immigrants to remain in the U.S. There are more than 1 million cases pending in immigration court, and this will clog the system up more.”
Private immigration attorneys can charge upwards of $15,000 per case, according to the legal website AllLaw.com. Court costs and government fees associated with deportation cases can total more than $20,000.
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San Diego recently made headlines for being the first metropolitan area that volunteered to house migrant children who came across the Texas border under the Biden administration. The San Diego Convention Center began housing 1,450 children in March.
