By Julia Saltzman, J.D. candidate, Harvard Law School
STUDENT VOICES: The views expressed below are those of the student author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Access to Justice Lab.
“I had a lot of courage in front of the judge,” stated Jaime (a pseudonym). Jaime stood alone before an immigration judge without a lawyer, facing an attorney representing the U.S. government whose objective was to deport him. He later told an interviewer that his courage came from the help of legal information resources.
Legal information programs, like the one that helped Jaime, aim to support pro se noncitizens navigating the high stakes and extreme inequities of the U.S. system. Given that 63% of all noncitizens and 83% of detained noncitizens proceed without counsel, these programs could act as necessary stopgaps.
These programs are under threat. On January 22, 2025, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Department of Justice sub-agency that presides over the nation’s immigration courts, issued an order stopping four programs that provide legal information to unrepresented noncitizens. Chaos ensued: the order forced one nonprofit to stop in the middle of delivering services, causing some of the people who were being assisted inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center to be “in tears, facing looming deadlines they were relying on [the nonprofit’s] help to meet.” Several nonprofit providers sued to keep the programs running. On February 2, 2025, EOIR retreated on its decision, restoring funding and permitting services to continue.
Future attacks on these programs are likely. It is worth delving deeper into the nature of these programs and the evidence that these programs promote access to justice for unrepresented noncitizens navigating the complexities of our immigration system.
Summary of EOIR legal information programs
The Legal Orientation Program (“LOP”) is the longest running program of the four legal initiatives that the Trump Administration briefly revoked. It started under the George W. Bush administration after a successful pilot study demonstrated that providing “rights presentations” with basic legal information to detained noncitizens saved the government money and time as well as helped noncitizens make informed decisions. In 2023, the LOP program served more than 40,000 detained noncitizens by providing group and individual legal orientations, self-help workshops, and referrals to pro bono representation to adults at 35 immigration detention centers.
The remaining three programs use different methods to accomplish the common goal of giving noncitizens basic legal information. The Immigration Court Helpdesk (“ICH”) operates in 24 immigration courts and offers information sessions, self-help workshops, pro bono outreach, and friend of the court services to noncitizens who are not detained. The program assisted 12,000 individuals in 2023. The Family Group Legal Orientation Program (“FGLOP”), provides similar services to families placed in certain expedited processes for deportation, serving 9,000 individuals at nine immigration courts in 2023. The Counsel for Children Initiative (“CCI”) is distinct as it provides representation, though its services are limited to certain unaccompanied immigrant children in certain cities.
Evidence that legal information programs address due process safeguards
Immigration law is notoriously complex. Immigration proceedings prove difficult to navigate without an attorney, especially for noncitizens who do not speak English, lack legal education, or lack community connections or resources. The stakes are high. The decisions of immigration adjudicators can result in deportation, life-threatening danger, and permanent family separation. Unlike the accused in criminal proceedings involving sufficiently serious charges, noncitizens who cannot afford an attorney do not have the right to appointed counsel. Where available, LOP and similar programs may be the only free resources for legal information available to noncitizens.
Legal information programs aim to educate and empower noncitizens in immigration proceedings. Programs start with the basics. As one provider stated, “[W]e often hear that people don’t know what’s happening. Why are they detained? What’s going to happen next?”. Beyond providing basic information responsive to such questions, the programs also aspire to help noncitizens understand the substantive aspects of immigration law, including by helping noncitizens identify if they are eligible for any relief and by facilitating informed choices about whether to move forward with their case. In addition, these programs strive to help noncitizens meet the mechanical requirements of the immigration process, such as filing documents to the correct address, completing required forms, and meeting vital deadlines.
The efficiency debate
Congress has funded the programs year after year, expanding their reach pursuant to bipartisan support. Many arguments justifying funding, and the corresponding evaluations conducted to support this justification, have centered around efficiency and taxpayer cost. Immigration courts face a backlog of 3.6 million cases. Immigration judges state that LOP increases immigration court efficiency. Some evaluations of the programs conducted by the government and its contractors have shown LOP facilitates the immigration relief process, speeds up immigration court proceedings, and decreases the time noncitizens spend in detention.
Other evaluations have led to unfavorable results. Reminiscent of its decisions from last month, DOJ suspended LOP in 2018, but revoked its decision less than two weeks later, planning to conduct a review of the program. The subsequent review claimed noncitizens who participated in LOP spent more time in detention and that their cases in immigration court took longer to complete, which in turn drives up tax-payer costs.
In response, the contracting organization then tasked with running LOP, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera), issued a counter-study, calling EOIR’s claims into question because of the study’s “insurmountable methodological flaws.” Vera’s study of EOIR’s same data from 2013 to 2017 found with 99% certainty that LOP participants resolved their cases more quickly. One methodological issue upon which Vera focused was the fact that the EOIR’s review had dropped cases still pending at the time of its study. A statistical technique called survival analysis allowed Vera to consider pending cases as well as completed cases. This proved critical because the large backlog of cases in immigration court and prolonged duration of many cases meant that only looking at completed cases (which, again, is what the EOIR study did) would underestimate case duration. This debate demonstrates that though efficiency is an important value, research that mischaracterizes or misapplies rigorous analysis could undermine that very value.
Refocusing on access to justice
Notably missing from this debate regarding length of proceedings, and consequently higher taxpayer costs, was any evaluation of if the programs accomplish their fundamental purpose to provide noncitizens with dignity and the necessary legal information to proceed in a complex, adversarial, and high-stakes system. Especially now as the Trump administration’s rapid changes to immigration policy mean more noncitizens may face detention and deportation, the absence of evidence on A2J and due process is disturbing.
Future evaluations of these programs using qualitative and quantitative research should prioritize how they enhance due process and access to justice. On the qualitative side, a few questions to consider include: Are more noncitizens meeting immigration court deadlines? Do noncitizens have a greater understanding of the process in which they are embroiled? Do they feel more empowered and prepared? Are they more likely to secure pro bono representation? Are their applications for relief ultimately more likely to be approved? Anecdotally, the answer to all these questions is yes. However, qualitative evidence-based research could assess these anecdotes. Likewise, quantitative research could help provide evidence to answer some of these questions. One potential study could measure procedural justice for program participants by administering surveys as part of a randomized control trial regarding who receives services, and then later comparing immigration relief approval rates for program participants against those who did not receive services. Evidence-based research focusing on due process and access to justice, if available, could provide stronger advocacy tools for legal information programs.
If you’re interested in more details of this project, listen to our Proof Over Precedent podcast episode on the topic.