Aissa Olivarez: “Hopefully we can be a small light in this process.”
In a detention facility 50 miles from Madison, a man is locked in a cell. An undocumented immigrant arrested on Dec. 7 for driving without a license, he’s now facing deportation to a country that is no longer his home. He’s no hardened criminal, but he’s being held in a place that might as well be prison.
Unlike many in the 200-bed facility in Dodge County run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this man has access to a lawyer. Aissa Olivarez, the new staff attorney for the Madison-based Community Immigration Law Center (CILC), is working to get her client released so he can be home with his family while fighting his removal order. But since his bond hearing isn’t until January, the man is spending the holidays alone in lockup. “He is finding it very hard to be away from his two boys and away from his wife,” Olivarez says. “The children are also having a very difficult time at school … now the older boy feels like he has to be the protector for his mom.”
Without legal help, Olivarez fears he might have lost hope and given up. “That happens to a lot of detainees, and they end up doing something adverse to their future case,” she says. Up against a complex and adversarial legal system coupled with language barriers and the stress of isolation, it’s not uncommon for detained immigrants to sign their rights away. “And if they do something adverse, like accepting a deportation, they end up shooting themselves in the foot.”
Olivarez, a 2016 graduate of UW-Madison Law School, is the first-ever full-time staff attorney at CILC, a nonprofit resource center founded in 2009 and run out of Christ Presbyterian Church. Her position is funded out of a $100,000 grant from the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based research and reform advocacy nonprofit. Hired in August, Olivarez primarily focuses on helping people who are going through removal proceedings — the final step before deportation. “I equate it to a death sentence,” Olivarez says of deportation. “People are being sent to violent places they’ve never known.”
Dane County was one of 11 areas nationwide awarded funding, which will allow CILC to maintain the full-time staff attorney position for two years. The Immigrant Justice Clinic at the UW-Law School also benefited from the Vera Institute grant, bringing on a part-time immigration lawyer earlier this year. The Vera Institute launched the Safe Cities initiative in November with the goal of providing legal representation for immigrants facing deportation.
This push to add legal resources for immigrants comes at a time of fear and uncertainty for the nation’s immigrant community, says Grant Sovern, an attorney and president of the board at CILC. Although more people were deported during the administration of President Barack Obama than during that of any other president, many find the hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric of President Trump more troubling. “Nobody knows who’s next when it comes to deportation,” Sovern says. “There’s this extremely heightened level of anxiety.”
CILC has also added a free citizenship class, which meets every Thursday night at Christ Presbyterian Church. Coursework covers topics on the U.S. citizenship exam as well as English grammar and conversation. Jean-Rene Watchou, co-founder of CILC, says the class has garnered interest not just with undocumented immigrants, but also with permanent residents who have green cards. “With this administration,” Watchou says, “it’s better to be on the safe side.”
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enumerates the right to an attorney in all criminal proceedings. But because immigration laws are civil, defendants have no such guarantee of representation. “We have very limited resources to help immigrants — the government provides no funding,” says Sovern. There are a few local immigration lawyers who occasionally volunteer to provide pro bono help, plus organizations like Jewish Social Services, Catholic Charities and RISE. CILC has previously operated in triage mode, taking “only the best cases,” Sovern says.
Studies show only 37 percent of detained immigrants are able to secure legal representation. But lawyers can have a huge impact on the outcome of the case. The Vera Institute found that without representation, only 4 percent of deportation cases are resolved successfully, but with a lawyer the success rate jumps to 48 percent. “A positive outcome doesn’t mean they won’t be deported,” Sovern says, “but they can come back soon.”
A wide range of events can trigger the deportation process. Sometimes the offense is as minor as driving without a license or writing a bad check. And it’s not just undocumented immigrants who are vulnerable; permanent residents and green card holders can also be deported. As a policy, Madison and Dane County law enforcement officers don’t arrest people on suspicion of immigration violations. But when an individual is booked into the Dane County jail on pending criminal charges, their personal information — including immigration status — is entered into the National Crime Information Center database. If the inmate is flagged as a non-citizen, ICE receives an automated notification and can order the person to be sent to an ICE detention center in Dodge or Kenosha counties. “I step in at that point,” Olivarez says.
With just two ICE facilities for the entire state, detained immigrants are often cut off from their families — and from legal resources. The closest immigration court is in Chicago, adding to logistical challenges. “The government tries to keep people away from lawyers,” Olivarez says.
Though she’s only been in her position for a few months, Olivarez has seen evidence of the toll that the harsh political climate is taking on vulnerable populations. “There’s tears in the office almost every day,” she says. Still, she’s been able to make an impact, securing release for a number of detainees and working on outreach, visiting local schools to educate students and parents about their rights and provide resources to potential allies.
“Hopefully we can be a small light in this process,” Olivarez says, “so people are not going through this alone.”
