The Executive Office for Immigration Review has announced a new Legal Orientation Program that it hopes will improve the efficiency of immigration proceedings. Under the program, private nonprofit agencies will provide information about the immigration legal process to detained foreigners facing removal hearing. The detainees will be given essential information about court procedures, self-help materials, referrals to pro bono attorneys and available options for legal relief prior to their first immigration hearing. EOIR Director Kevin Rooney said, “everyone will benefit from this innovative program. The detained individual benefits from better information about his legal situation, and the taxpayer gains with reduced detention costs through a more efficient legal process.”

In 1998, the EOIR funded three 90-day pilot projects to evaluate the benefits of such programs in Port Isabel, Texas; Florence, Arizona; and San Pedro, California. The pilot programs resulted in a 20 percent reduction in detention time while increasing the percentage of detainees able to obtain legal representation. The Legal Orientation Program is now operational at Department of Homeland Security detention facilities in Port Isabel; Elroy, Arizona; and Buffalo (Batavia), New York. In two months, the Lancaster, California and Seattle Washington site will be operating. The sixth site has yet to be determined.

EOIR, a component of the Department of Justice, is responsible for providing due process to individuals who are charged with immigration law violations. A congressional appropriation of $1 million funds the Legal Orientation Program. Norwich University of Northfield, Vermont handles the program under contract and will oversee six separate non-profit agencies, which will conduct the program locally. More than 23,000 DHS detainees are expected to benefit from the program in the first year, nearly 20 percent of the detainees who appear in the Immigration Court each year. Expanding to other sites will depend on close evaluations of the present sites.