Immigration Issues In The State Courts: Key Improvements Are Being Implemented
As part of its on-going work in the Miami-Dade County Superior Court, the Maricopa County, Arizona, Superior Court, and the Courts of the Minnesota Eighth Judicial Circuit, The Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) has identified ten key improvements for better addressing the impacts of federal, state, and local immigration law, policy, and practice. The ten key improvements now being implemented in at least one or more of the pilot learning sites include:
- revamping state trial court records preparation and management practices, to include criminal and family law case information in formats that could be readily used in concurrent or subsequent federal immigration proceedings;
- working with justice partners to increase access to interpreters early on to assure that non-English speaking litigants have an opportunity to assess whether their immigration status might be a factor in their case before the state court;
- working with defense council and prosecutors to assure that the implications of immigration status are well known throughout the legal community;
- addressing the complicated interplay among immigration status and eligibility for the types of local, state, and federally-funded services often associated with state court cases, such as substance abuse and mental health treatment, parenting assistance, and medical assistance for children;
- establishing information links between court and justice agency litigant assistance services and resources for immigrants such as national consulates and legal and family support organizations;
- establishing mechanisms for locating the family members of individuals involved in state court cases;
- redesigning self-help services to assist litigants in self-identifying whether their or a family member’s immigration status might be a factor in their state trial court case;
- working with state and federal justice partners to improve communications practice so that state court and local detention officials can quickly determine if state court litigants are in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, or have been removed from the country and thus are no longer able to meet state court requirements, such as appearances for hearings, and other probation conditions;
- revamping plea acceptance practices to assure that defendants have been advised of the immigration consequences of their plea; and,
- preparing training materials and establishing education programs throughout the court to assure that judges and court personnel are aware of the connections between immigration status and criminal, family, and juvenile case processing.
