Nobody is his attorney unless and until he signs a form authorizing him/her to serve as his attorney.
Right see I had no idea he hadn’t signed anything. He told me today there are people coming out from the Catholic Charities this week and I told him he needs to be paying more attention if he wants to fight.
I have spent the past week now calling attorneys from that list of supposed “free legal services”
http://www.justice.gov/eoir/probono/freelglchtTN.htm
from here in Memphis to Louisiana and every single one who called me back has said they are not free and they don’t know why they’re on a list of free attorneys. This is the same one handed out at the detention center where he is. I want to know why they claim they are free when they aren’t even close to free. Not one of them. The Catholic Charities is, but they aren’t attorneys.
This has just become ridiculous. He was told at his last court date to get a lawyer or he could represent himself. I guess if you can’t afford a lawyer you’re just SOL. How do they expect people to represent themselves when they can’t even access information?
Did you mention you got the referral from the US Dept. of Justice web site?
From my limited understanding of thisdescription (PDF), they had to apply in order to appear on the list - so they shouldn’t be surprised that they are on it.
It might be worth following up with an email to the DOJ website that maintains that list. You could always ask one of them what they would charge for a consultation about the case. In 30 minutes you can probably explain the specifics of his case, get some pointers on how to proceed, and pay less than you might imagine if you can’t get anyone to take the case pro bono.
Catholic Charities may not be attorneys, but it sounds like they coordinate attorneys who are willing to do pro bono work. That’s a fairly common arrangement.
Sadly, this sort of thing happens all too often, even to people who would have a decent shot at staying if their cases were well-prepared, not to mention to people applying for asylum who are genuinely at risk of serious harm or death if they are deported.
I agree that it sucks that lawyers are on the pro bono list if they have no intention of doing work for free, but they don’t end up on the list randomly; they must have asked to be on the list at some point and never asked to be removed from it.
If Catholic Charities can’t line up a lawyer for you, can they at least point you toward some publicly available resources so you can do some of the legwork yourself? Not having a lawyer doesn’t mean you are SOL; people do actually represent themselves and win. It ain’t easy, but it does happen.
I’ve been studying on how to file without a lawyer. I’m not sure how he could come up with proof he’s lived here ten years, but I’ll try. He has an old work ID but his name is misspelled by one letter so I’m not sure if it will be considered valid. I’m going to start going through all his old papers tomorrow.
I have checklists at work, but some ideas off the top of my head:
- Rent/utility receipts
- Bills or receipts of any kind, as long as they have his name on them somewhere - cell phone, maybe?
- Medical/dental records
- Bank records, particularly if you guys have a joint account
- Did he wire money to Mexico? if so, money transfer receipts if he has them
- Oddly enough, the arrest records could come in handy here - how far back do they go? Are there any for simple traffic stops?
- Your daughter’s birth certificate and any other docs related to her (or to you) that have his name on them - school records and treatment records for her, that kind of thing
- Work records: pay stubs, W-2s if he has them, affidavits from former/current employers/co-workers
- Affidavits from friends/family (these are probably less helpful than documentary evidence, but you’re going for quantity here)
- Has he filed taxes? Definitely include those if he has; if he has, but doesn’t have copies, PM me and I’ll send you the info on how to get copies/tax transcripts from the IRS
- Does the Mexican Consulate have any records of the stolen matricula being issued in the U.S.? See if you can get those, or records of any other contact he’s had over the years with the the Mexican Consulate
Good luck. For this kind of stuff, you want to bury them in paper.
Thank you Eva Luna, I’m finding so many of those Western Union stubs, you would not believe. I know they at least go back as long as we’ve been together; eight years. But I’ll keep going. He had a ton of taxes taken out from many jobs, unfortunately they were in either a fake or another person’s social security number. I’m guessing fake since it has his name on the card. That’s a story there. But he used it for many years. I don’t know how. I’m getting copies of our IEP and speech path’s reports and her birth certificate. Before eight years ago…I’m not finding anything yet but I’ll keep going. There’s many more boxes in the attic to hit tomorrow.
I’m talking about tax returns, not taxes taken out from his check. Does he have an ITIN? He may have filed tax returns with that, and they would have his name on them.
How’s it coming along? Any updates?
How are you holding up, Rushgeekgirl?