WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, the Justice Department (DOJ) quietly gutted the Recognition and Accreditation (R&A) program, a 60+ year-old initiative that accredits non-attorneys to provide affordable legal aid for immigration courts across the United States. According to initial reports by CBS News, the administration made no public announcement of the abrupt change, and reassigned the majority of the program’s attorneys to other departments. Dismantling this program marks yet another deep cut to our nation’s constitutional promise of due process, life-saving legal access, governmental efficiency, and democracy. 

Gutting the R&A program impacts forty percent of the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) membership—a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of over seventy of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations across forty states—most of which provided legal assistance to their communities through the R&A program. NPNA and its members firmly condemn these attacks on our communities and the organizations that strive to meet the ballooning legal representation needs of people navigating our complex and life-altering immigration system.

Said Nicole Melaku, NPNA executive director, “Gutting the Recognition and Accreditation program is a deliberate attempt to cut off an invaluable lifeline, weaken trust in the legal process, and leave crucial gaps in a legal system that largely does not provide representation. Amid ongoing discussion on how to rein in the mass deportation machine and uphold justice throughout our immigration system, we want to reiterate: this administration is continuing to create a cruel, discriminatory, and unfair system that seeks only to cause harm and disrupt our communities, economies, and democracy.

“We urge this administration to reverse course and uphold due process, and we call on Congress to protect our sacred democratic norms with oversight.”

Said Diego Bonesatti, legal services program manager for Michigan United and DOJ Accredited, “This move—happening at the same time that ICE’s budget is expanding—is an attempt to strangle immigrant communities, who aren’t entitled to a public defender for civil matters. Across the country, almost a thousand nonprofits host over two thousand accredited representatives who represent immigrant families—from defending against removal in immigration court to shepherding applicants through the naturalization process.

“Michigan United serves immigrant families from Grand Rapids to Southwest Detroit, and this will impede our services, as well as those of twenty other organizations in thirty-one locations. This is a blow to immigrant communities across Michigan and the United States.”

Said Carlos Javier Torres, director of policy and strategic partnerships at the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama (HICA), “For nearly two decades, our DOJ-accredited team has helped more than three thousand individuals across Alabama and beyond find their way through an overwhelming and cost-prohibitive legal system. What’s at stake here is not just a program, it’s a reflection of who we are and how we show up for those most in need. Congress must act to preserve the Department of Justice’s Accreditation and Recognition program. At a time when access to justice is already out of reach for so many, this administration should be supporting this work more than ever.”

Said Allen Shao King, Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) legal services director, “Shamefully, there is no right to counsel in any immigration process—even in deportation proceedings—and in many parts of the country, there aren’t enough immigration attorneys even for individuals who can afford one. The DOJ Recognition & Accreditation program rose to fill this gap by providing individuals in these life-altering situations with quality, affordable legal representation. There are thousands of naturalized United States citizens today, only due to the hard work of DOJ-accredited representatives around the country who helped them navigate the immigration legal system and secure that status. This continued erosion of our immigration system prevents the capable representatives who have spent years developing their expertise from practicing, and is yet another admission by the Trump administration that they never cared about people following our immigration processes in the first place, but about reshaping our nation based on their narrow vision of who belongs.”

Said Erendira Rendon, vice president of Immigration at The Resurrection Project, “Across Illinois, we have seen the vital role that accredited representatives have in our communities and organizations. Undermining the R&A program weakens services, deepens inequality, and is a threat to due process.”

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The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of over 70 of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations with reach across over 40 states. Together with our members, we advance immigrant and refugee equity and inclusion, build and expand immigration legal services and integration programming capacity, and drive campaigns that strengthen democracy through increased civic participation. See our website for more information at partnershipfornewamericans.org.