Immigrants in Alabama facing possible deportation are less likely than many other states to have a lawyer, data shows.

“It’s a huge problem here that there aren’t enough attorneys,” said Allison Hamilton, who runs the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Hamilton said a lot of people are being put into expedited removal, don’t have access to due process and can’t adequately defend themselves.

Taken together, she believes many Alabama immigrants without attorneys face an increased risk of unjust deportations.

Immigrants in the United States are not entitled to a lawyer in all types of immigration cases. Whether they can get one depends a lot on where they live. Of Alabama residents in immigration court, only 24% have a lawyer, according to a Syracuse University analysis of active cases across the state.

In some cases, those immigrants may be children or incapacitated people.

“Even that toddler or that profoundly disabled respondent will be forced to defend himself in removal proceedings against an attorney who has, at his disposal, the virtually unlimited resources of the U.S. federal government,” said Danny Upton, a Birmingham immigration attorney.

Alabama has no immigration court in the state, which is one reason fewer immigration attorneys work here. Cases require travel to Atlanta, New Orleans or Memphis for court which makes it a less appealing field.

Alabama is ranked 41st in the nation for the likelihood of immigrants having access to attorneys, based on the 27,233 immigration court cases for residents of the state, according to Syracuse.

Upton said his office has had a waiting list for clients since President Donald Trump took office.

Among the states where immigrants are most likely to get legal help, in Hawaii, 85% of immigrants have lawyers; in California, 62% have a lawyer; and in New York, Maine and Virginia, 60% have attorneys.

In states like Idaho, Oklahoma and Colorado, immigrants are most likely to go it alone without legal representation.

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Immigration law is the most complicated kind of law, said John Bell, who practices in Birmingham. For many of his clients, who speak foreign or indigenous languages and have a middle-school level education or are illiterate, they stand no chance alone.

“They don’t want to admit they speak Akatek,” a Mayan language, he said. “So they go forward. They may not understand but every two or three words.”

The shortage of lawyers has also fueled fraud by people who call themselves “notarios” and take money to file legal proceedings without qualifications. The Spanish word “notario,” which means attorney, sounds like the English word for “notary,” Bell and Upton said, and can confuse immigrants looking for help with legal proceedings.

Three Alabama cities with the highest number of immigrants involved in active cases show a similar pattern, according to data from Syracuse:

• Of the 4,222 people with active court cases who reside in Birmingham, 19% have an attorney.
• In Montgomery, there are 1,845 cases and 25% of the immigrants have a lawyer.
• In Albertville 1,669 people are in active proceedings and 19% have an attorney.

“Right now, especially, there are just so many ways that it can go wrong, and you can end up in deportation proceedings,”said Hamilton. “It’s extremely risky to try to handle your own case.”