The complex U.S. immigration system has made it difficult for refugees and asylum seekers to secure their rights without legal help. This is doubly true for people whose first language is not English.

According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, there were roughly 800,000 more immigrants with pending deportation cases this April than the 2.8 million counted at the end of last year. Only about half a million of the more than 1.3 million pending cases had been completed by the courts.

The number of lawyers who report they cannot keep up with demand has been sharply increasing. Asylum claims are almost always urgent, and there are many cases where the law is clear and a case ought to move quickly, but it doesn’t simply because the system itself is designed poorly. A lot of needless suffering and needless spending would be prevented by simplifying the system.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)