Latest in Series to Improve Representation Before Immigration Courts
First One on Representing Immigrant Women Victims of Violence before the EOIR
Model Hearing Program Also Seeks to Increase Pro Bono Participation

SAN JUAN – A recent training program held at the San Juan Immigration Court is the latest in a series of nationwide training sessions to improve the quality of attorney representation of aliens facing removal proceedings and to increase the level of pro bono representation to assist individuals with their cases.    This was the first time that the Pro Bono Program used a Violence Against Women Act Cancellation of removal as the basis for the training scenario.

The training program was sponsored by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the nation’s immigration court system, and Eugenio Maria de Hostos Law School Immigration Clinic, the Puerto Rico  Bar Association Immigrant Rights Committee and Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer, the oldest women’s  right coalition in Puerto Rico.   The Puerto Rico program was coordinated and planned by EOIR’s Legal Access Counsel, Steven Lang, and Prof. Sheila I. Vélez Martínez director of the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Law School Immigration Clinic and president of  the Puerto Rico  Bar Association Immigrant Rights Committee, as well as Ms. Baira Soto program coordinator of  Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer.

Fifteen  attorneys attended the afternoon session.  All were attorneys from the Legal Services Corporation   with varying levels of immigration experience that will be representing immigrant victims of violence as authorized by the amendments made by Congress to the Violence Against Women Act in December 2005.  The program provided practical hands-on immigration court training as a basis for their accepting future pro bono VAWA  cases in which they will represent immigration clients with the assistance of an experienced mentor.

Puerto Rico Immigration Judge Irma Lopez Defilló presided over the April 24 program, which included an overview of removal proceedings and immigration court procedure.  The training included a mock hearing of a hypothetical case involving an immigrant women survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault from Guatemala.  A number of volunteer attorneys from Puerto Rico represented their “client,” and Magdalena  Ramos, a Department of Homeland Security trial attorney from Puerto Rico assisted other participants in presenting  the government’s case against the battered woman.

The model hearing was similar to more than 20 training sessions that have been conducted since 2001 through EOIR’s Model Hearing Program, training nearly 200 attorneys, law students, and representatives accredited to assist individuals in immigration proceedings.  However, this is the first time that a VAWA Cancellation case has been used as the training scenario.

These sessions have been held in nine locations throughout the country, including Philadelphia and York, Pa.

EOIR’s Model Hearing Program is part of the agency’s Legal Access Program, which includes the Legal Orientation Program, in which representatives from local nonprofit organizations provide comprehensive explanations about immigration court procedures and other basic legal information to large groups of detained individuals; the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) Pro Bono Project, which recruits pro bono legal assistance for immigration detainees in presenting their cases before the BIA; and the Unaccompanied Alien Children initiative, which coordinates with agencies to identify and resolve issues involving children in removal proceedings.