SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer introduced a plan Tuesday intended to make San Diego the first southern border county in the United States with a program to provide legal representation for immigrants facing removal proceedings.
Lawson-Remer’s office claims the proposed initiative — the Immigrant Rights Legal Defense Program – – is intended to help address the current backlog in immigration courts, while also saving taxpayer dollars and supporting the local economy.
As proposed, the program would use taxpayer dollars to fund attorneys to represent detained immigrants in San Diego County. It would start as a $5 million one-year pilot project, and eventually grow to be a permanent resource housed in the San Diego County Office of the Public Defender and work in partnership with regional immigrant defense agencies and nonprofits.