Posted on 09/29/2010 5:26:43 AM PDT by stan_sipple
I've previously argued that the benefits of so-called "civil Gideon" are overstated, and another example hit the news recently.
In FY 1986, 89% of asylum claims were denied, and 52% of asylum seekers had counsel. In FY 2010, 50% of asylum claims were denied, and 91% of asylum seekers had counsel; the approval rates for without and with counsel were 11% and 54% respectively.
Therefore, Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse announces, legal representation helps asylum seekers in court, and more legal representation is needed?a claim repeated uncritically by an article by Marcia Coyle in the National Law Journal without any opposition in her story. Given that the ABA has called for that legal representation to come at taxpayer expense, that is not an apolitical claim.
There are two problems with TRAC's claim. First, the causal arrow goes both ways. For example, in civil litigation, a number of delusional people insist upon self-representation or are refused representation by attorneys. They do not lose their cases because they don't have attorneys, they don't have attorneys because their cases are facially meritless. The same is true in asylum cases. Someone with a meritorious asylum case is more likely to spend their own money to ensure they have an attorney; an attorney trying to decide which of her scarce resources to devote to a pro bono case is going to triage her cases to reject the ones she does not think have merit. Coming to court with an attorney is a signaling device that either the client or the attorney thinks the case has enough merit to expend time and money on it.
Second, it is painfully obvious from TRAC's own numbers that there are other causes for the huge decrease in asylum denials. Even if every unrepresented applicant was denied asylum in 1986 (which clearly wouldn't be true), represented applicants could not have won more than 22% of their cases. So judges are granting asylum far more often today?which is odd, because there has been no material change in asylum law, and in terms of facts on the ground, the world is a far less repressive place in 2010 than it was in 1986 by any legitimate measure.
In short, TRAC and the National Law Journal have missed the real story. Why are asylum rates going up? The change in the mix of judges seems to have something to do with it. And the most notorious asylum seeker this year, Zeituni Onyango, Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt, was granted asylum on the laughable theory that she faced political oppression because she was related to Obama, a hero in Kenya. Ms. Onyango, who ignored a 2004 deportation order after her original asylum request was denied during the Clinton era, is now living on the taxpayer dime in Boston.
“Asylum Rates Go Down”
They are all in Politics, now
ABA=amnesty bar association
It says that during that from 1986-2010 the approval rates went up as the percent of those applicants use of lawyers to file their claims went up.
The articles point is asylum approval rates go down when no lawyer is used and the example was the earlier 1986 date.
BS lawyers get more BS asylum claims approved in 2010!
Second sentence: "In FY 1986, 89% of asylum claims were denied, and 52% of asylum seekers had counsel. In FY 2010, 50% of asylum claims were denied, and 91% of asylum seekers had counsel; the approval rates for without and with counsel were 11% and 54% respectively."
Title should have said “Auntie Zeituni gets a public defender (barf)”
sorry title is wrong, should say “Asylum denial rates go down.”
“Civil Gideon” is law professor-speak for requiring taxpayers to pay for counsel for “lower income” people in civil cases. This is a favorite of the Harvard Law School faculty and “progressive” lawyers.
Just thought you’d like to know - it will probably be foisted on us by the courts without the people having a clue about what is being done to them.
How else are those new lawyers going to pay the loans on their overpriced law school degrees (sarc)?
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