Challenges to Legal Representation at Pearsall Detention Center

Today’s count: 1,490 detainees (1,113 males and 277 females)

Today we visited the South Texas Detention Complex (Pearsall Immigration Detention Center), accompanied by representatives of major law firms and faith-based and community groups that are concerned about the asylum seekers and immigrants held at the facility. U.S. immigration officials for ICE (the immigration enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security) conducted our tour, met with us, and spent several hours with our groups.

As we mentioned previously, there are many problems with detainee access to legal representation at Pearsall. To begin with, there are only three attorney visitation rooms in the entire facility – a facility with a capacity for 1,904 detainees. That comes to 1 attorney visitation room for about 600 detainees! Lack of sufficient attorney visitation rooms seriously hinders an effective representation process for detainees, since their attorneys must compete for limited time slots and space with other legal service providers. Not providing sufficient attorney visitation rooms can create delays, in some cases forcing attorneys to wait for hours before gaining access to the facility to meet with their clients. When we asked Jay Sparks, Pearsall Detention Center’s Assistant Field Office Director, why there weren’t more attorney visitation rooms, he explained that Pearsall was originally built to house only 1,020 detainees, so the three rooms satisfied the original construction plan. While three attorney visitation rooms for over 1,000 detainees would still be inadequate, we inquired whether there had been a plan to add new attorney visitation rooms when the facility was expanded to1,904 beds or if there were plans to add such rooms in the future. Mr. Sparks said the facility as built could not physically accommodate more attorney visitation rooms.

Furthermore, the remoteness of the detention facility from a major city center deserves to be stressed. Pearsall Detention Center is located in an isolated area, in the middle of cow pasture. Literally. As we mentioned yesterday, the facility is over two hours from the nearest hub of non-profit and legal organizations (Austin), and one hour from San Antonio. While we anticipated that the issue of distance creates a problem for accessing legal representation, it turns out it also makes it more difficult to recruit and retain full-time employees to work at the facility, including medical personnel – who are undoubtedly necessary for the safe and effective running of the facility. Prospective employees must contend with the cost of commuting from San Antonio or elsewhere to Pearsall. Attorneys face the same time and monetary expenses, making it especially hard for pro bono representatives to provide legal counsel to detainees at Pearsall.

The facility is so remote, in fact, that it has become common practice to use televideo conferencing for court hearings and screenings of arriving asylum seekers for credible fear interviews. But the use of televideo conferencing for asylum seekers hinders the judges’ and asylum officers’ ability to make an informed finding as to the applicant’s credibility, a key finding at the credible fear interview stage and the merits hearing.

In addition, given that the availability of pro bono attorneys is so limited at Pearsall, we tried to assess the prospects facing detainees who decide to press their cases without counsel, or pro se. A visit to the law library during the tour revealed an absolute lack of legal materials in any language other than English. How then would an asylum seeker, from say, Burma prepare an asylum application if unable to find pro bono legal representation? When many of detainees, particularly asylum seekers, are non-English speaking, the law library offers little assistance in preparing complex petitions for relief.

Everything we mentioned just skims the surface of the legal, medical, and other challenges facing asylum seekers and others in detention at Pearsall. We hope that becoming informed – and informing others – about these circumstances will be the first step in working to address the situation.