Other Changes Impacting Access to Counsel

effect of disadvantaging detained persons who could not afford to pay a lawyer and detained people who did not have family in the United States, as is the case for many asylum seekers, as well as detained persons who needed interpretation.

For instance, on July 17th, several private attorneys were at Karnes. At one point, three private attorneys occupied private rooms with telephone access but were not meeting with clients nor were any of their clients waiting to meet with them. Yet, when a RAICES staff member asked a GEO guard for access to one of the occupied rooms in order to use a phone for interpretation, she was denied because private attorneys were in those rooms. During this same time period, RAICES staff were barred from occupying a private room when not meeting with a client or when waiting for a client, but the same rule was not applied to private attorneys. Later that day, four Haitian women arrived to meet with RAICES for the first time as part of a group meeting. These women also had to wait for a private attorney to finish their legal visits and vacate a room in order to access a space with a phone to call a Haitian Creole interpreter. In the interest of efficiency and screening for urgency, best practice would be to initially speak to these women together to share general information and ascertain basic facts about their legal needs. However, that day a GEO “Sergeant” informed the RAICES team that in the future, detained persons would have to use private rooms one at a time, even if they were called into visitation as part of a group meeting. Later that same day, a RAICES staff member complained that a private attorney was again occupying a private room without a client present when the RAICES legal assistant needed to access a phone in that room. The GEO guard informed RAICES staff that private attorneys are given priority and that it did not matter that this rule inhibited access to counsel because the RAICES staff person was a legal assistant, not an attorney. When staff cited ICE’s own detention standards and noted that they made no distinction between detained persons meeting with legal assistants versus attorneys, the GEO guard simply stated “Well I don’t know about that,” and staff was required to wait until the private attorney left to access the telephone line.

At some point GEO began to limit the amount of time a detained person could meet with a legal representative in one of the five private rooms that contain a phone, frequently used to call interpreters. In one example of disparate treatment, on May 8, 2019, GEO informed RAICES that if private attorneys came to visitation, RAICES staff would be required to vacate the private rooms to accommodate them. That day, a private attorney used a private room continuously from 9:40 AM to 12:00 PM despite the one hour time limit. On June 10, a few minutes before the 8:00 PM end of legal visitation hours, GEO entered a private room to ask a RAICES legal assistant to finish her client meeting. There was a private attorney in a private room at the same time, and he was permitted to continue visitation until he ended his own meeting a few minutes after eight. At no point was he interrupted.

In another example, GEO began to refuse to call more than one RAICES client at a time into the visitation area, which resulted in increased time spent waiting for clients. Yet, on July 10, staff overheard a GEO guard inform a private attorney that she called five of his clients at once.