“A System Designed to Make People Disappear”: One Pro Bono Lawyer’s Efforts to Represent an Immigrant Detainee

In “A System Designed to Make People Disappear,” Dan Canon writes in Slate about his experience attempting to provide pro bono representation to an immigrant detainee.  (Note the emphasis on the word “attempt” – as the article notes, “I tried to represent an undocumented man rounded up by ICE.  I couldn’t even find him.”) The story is heartbreaking but not particularly unusual, as it describes the common practice of ICE transferring individuals to facilities around the country, the difficulty of communicating with ICE officials to secure attorney visits, the utter lack of transparency around the legal process, and the practice of deporting immigrants without providing court hearings (either through voluntary departure or any one of a number of truncated proceedings).

-JKoh