BELLINGHAM, Wash. Immigration lawyers in Whatcom and Skagit counties are bracing for a wave of new cases as deportation efforts ramp up at the Canadian border, Cascadia Daily News reported.
The federal government appears to be using Washington voter rolls to facilitate deportations as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal voting ahead of the midterm elections, according to the report. Attorneys warn the trend is likely to jam immigration courts, creating a backlog and burdening lawyers who say they are already stretched thin.
Caught in the middle are U.S. permanent residents. The report described Paige Adamson, a 61-year-old Canadian citizen and permanent resident, who was held and questioned by U.S. border agents for six hours in September about whether she had ever voted in a U.S. election. Adamson, who the outlet said feared deportation and declined to seek medical care in Bellingham, died Oct. 18 in Point Roberts. Attorneys also told the outlet about a disabled truck driver who has lived in Washington alongside his American spouse for decades, and a Filipino woman with a green card in Point Roberts who worries about being effectively trapped in the exclave.
Blaine-based immigration lawyer Len Saunders told the outlet there are not many lawyers in Whatcom County who handle deportation, and that attorneys who take such cases are overwhelmed by what is already in the pipeline for immigration courts.
Data from the Washington State Bar Association show about 35 immigration and naturalization attorneys in Whatcom County and five in Skagit County, compared with nearly 1,200 statewide. Hannah Stone, a Bellingham City Council member and immigration attorney, wrote in an email that most local immigration attorneys focus on employment and family-based cases and have never stepped foot inside an immigration courtroom, saying there are, in her words, \"unequivocally\" not enough local lawyers practicing removal defense.
Bellingham attorney Nick Berning, who works on U.S. and Canadian citizenship cases, said removal defense is more complicated than other areas of immigration law by a wide margin, and that busy practitioners do not have time to learn the highly nuanced field. Gabe Harrison, one of the few Bellingham lawyers specializing in deportation defense, said his office is definitely overwhelmed and expects more cases involving voting records, which he said can drag on for about four years with several hearings.
Unlike in criminal and civil courts, respondents in immigration court do not have the right to legal counsel paid by the federal government. The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network requested $5 million from the state Legislature earlier this year to keep its deportation defense hotline running amid surging demand, per the report.
Saunders said it was once relatively easy for immigrants who unknowingly registered to vote, such as through automatic registration tied to driver licensing, to remedy the problem, but that discretion now appears to be gone. A spokesperson for the Washington State Attorney General's Office said the state is tracking reports of similar border incidents but declined to discuss specific cases or how many it has recorded.