“The statistics nationally are that the vast majority of people in deportation proceedings do not have legal representation,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute.
The bill, filed by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, a Republican from Southlake, bans any government entity, including public universities, from creating a defense fund using public money and grants. It would outlaw commissions, departments and councils from allocating funds for legal services in any immigration-related civil proceeding for undocumented residents. Capriglione did not respond to questions.
More undocumented residents were arrested in Dallas by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers than in any other city in 2024, according to the department's annual report. A years-long backlog of immigration cases is quickly being added to as hundreds more arrests roll in since President Donald Trump launched what he has called the “largest deportation program of criminals in American history.”
In some counties, defense funds have been established to provide undocumented residents with legal representation. People facing deportation do not have the right to a government-provided attorney, but they do have the right to due process, regardless of their citizenship status. Many undocumented residents do not have the means to afford the expensive legal fees, nor do they have the ability to contact a lawyer once they have been detained.
“Representation for people, and state and local funding for that, is a critical piece,” said Bush-Joseph. “But one of our major recommendations is actually that cases not get sent to the courts in the first place.”
Why Legal Representation Is Important
According to a study from the American Immigration Council, individuals who were not detained were five times more likely to be granted relief in immigration court when they had representation. Those detained were twice as likely to be granted relief when they could obtain representation. But since Trump took office in January, the immigration process has slowed.Trump expanded expedited removal to include any undocumented resident who cannot prove they have been in the country for two years. Before Trump's second term began, expedited removal only applied to immigrants within 100 miles of the border and 14 days of arrival. Expedited removal hastens the deportation process and removes the right to appear before an immigration judge.
“The reality is that no matter where [expedited removal is] being used, because it happens so quickly, people might only get one phone call,” said Bush-Joseph. “If you don't already have an attorney's number memorized, you might call your family and say, can you find me an attorney? And then, unfortunately, that person might already have been deported by the time their family is able to get in contact with them again.”
Bush-Joseph estimates that two-thirds of the 3.6 million immigration cases at the end of fiscal year 2024 did not have counsel. But she says another problem is that even if people can get counsel, continuing counsel through the entire legal process is another roadblock.
“My understanding is that the other one million-something cases are ones where, at some point, someone has had representation. You might have a legal service provider that was receiving money from the federal government to provide representation while [a] child was detained. But then, oftentimes, once kids are released, there is no funding to continue representation. So, it could be that the number of people without representation is actually much higher. It's just not clear."
County Defense Funds
The Vera Insitute, a nonprofit think tank, reported that 82% of the subjects of immigration cases in Dallas do not have legal representation. North Texas has a diverse and large immigrant population, and 864,000 immigrants are potentially at risk of deportation, according to the institute. But Dallas County does not have an immigration defense fund, instead, the county website has a list of resources and organizations that offer pro-bono work. The city of Dallas approved a small deportation defense fund in 2020 in partnership with the Vera Institute, where the city matched a $100,000 grant from the institute. In 2021, the city also distributed $500,000 to local nonprofits to provide financial assistance to immigrant families that were ineligible to receive stimulus checks. Dallas County was unable to respond to questions about the possibility of an immigration defense fund before publication, and the City of Dallas did not respond to questions regarding the current status and the future of its defense fund.
Other counties in Texas are setting aside millions to assist their immigrant populations battle deportation. Bexar County officially signed off on a county-funded $1 million immigration defense fund in May 2024. The fund was estimated to help at least 100 people, and supporters have proposed increasing the amount to provide for more of the county’s large immigrant population. The threshold to qualify for the free legal services is to be a Bexar County resident and to be an immigrant, documented or not.
“Fair and accessible legal representation ensures that an individual’s right to due process is protected and helps prevent needless family separation and unnecessary detentions,” Jim Bethke, executive director of the county’s Managed Assigned Counsel office, said to the San Antonio Express-News.
Harris County has had an immigration defense fund since 2020. Established with $2.5 million, the fund has a few more requirements. To receive free legal service, someone must be detained, a Harris County resident, and make less than $80,000.
Both Bexar and Harris counties funnel taxpayer dollars into the defense funds. Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody, the only person who voted against the fund, called it a “misuse” of tax dollars and worried about the fund paying for legal representation of undocumented criminals.
The immigration case backlog and ICE understaffing have created a logistical inability to deport hundreds of thousands of people. NBC News reported that the Trump Administration is requesting $175 billion for immigration enforcement, including additional ICE agents and 100,000 detention beds.
“The U.S. Immigration system, including the courts, is so overwhelmed and outdated and under-resourced that even if they get this additional funding, it's still going to take them time to ramp things up and there's just going to be these fundamental challenges with trying to deport this many people,” said Bush-Joseph.
