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.

Asylum Seekers Detained in Isolated Pearsall Facility

We pulled into Pearsall, Texas – population just over 7,000 – at dusk after a long and productive day of meetings in San Antonio. We met with representatives from community groups and legal service organizations, some of whom will be joining us on our tour of the detention center tomorrow. Our objective in holding these meetings was to learn what the greatest challenges and concerns are for those assisting asylum seekers and others detained at Pearsall.

Tomorrow at 9:00am we will begin our visit of the detention center. Pearsall Detention Center, a facility run by a private contractor, The GEO Group, Inc., was created in 2005 and has capacity for 1,904 detainees. There are 66 beds for children to be held in detention as well. Local advocates estimate that there are 250 asylum seekers in the facility at any given time. Refugees at Pearsall Detention Center come from a wide range of countries, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Burma, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia.

Our concerns for Pearsall Detention Center are numerous. To offer just one of many recurring themes in our conversations with local groups, detainees at Pearsall receive very limited access to legal representation. This problem is created most fundamentally by the great distance between major cities and the town of Pearsall; Pearsall Detention Center is 55 miles (1 hour) from San Antonio and 134 miles (2 hours) from Austin. The distance alone makes it incredibly cumbersome for private and public attorneys to take on cases of detained asylum seekers and others.

Despite the remoteness of the facility, just this past week some groups mobilized to bring attention to recent allegations of sexual abuse at Pearsall. Moreover, as highlighted by a local reporter, several civil rights groups, including LULAC, now plan to visit the facility and have stated that they will stage a protest if they are not able to meet with the warden.

Clearly, attention recent media attention has shown a light on the needs of detainees held at Pearsall. We expect that our visit tomorrow will help us better understand the challenges faced by this vulnerable and neglected population.