My son's law firm is sending attorneys to Brownsville

We’ve compiled a list of organizations that are mobilizing to try and help children that have been separated from their parents at the Texas-Mexico border:

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project works to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families fleeing violence. The group accepts donations and asks people to sign up for volunteer opportunities here.

South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project is providing free legal services to asylum seekers detained in South Texas.

RAICES is a nonprofit that provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children, families and refugees in Texas. It’s accepting donations and volunteers at its website. In addition, the

#postcards4families campaign will donate $5 to RAICES for every postcard kids write to help the separated immigrant children.

The CARA Project is currently recruiting attorneys, law students and paralegals with experience in asylum work. The group asks volunteers to be fluent in Spanish or willing to work with an interpreter.

Kids In Need of Defense partners with major law firms, corporations and bar associations to create a nationwide pro bono network to represent unaccompanied children through their immigration proceedings. Volunteers don’t need to have immigration law experience.

The El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center provides legal representation to immigrants who might not be able to afford it otherwise. It’s accepting volunteers and donations.

The Austin Bar Association Civil Right and Immigration Section is coordinating training for pro bono attorneys to handle credible fear interviews for asylum seekers.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley shelters immigrants who've recently been released from U.S. Border Patrol custody.

American Gateways provides legal services and representation to separated parents. It's currently seeking volunteers to represent detained parents who've been separated from their children.

Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services is the largest provider of free and low cost immigration services in West Texas and says it's the only organization in El Paso serving unaccompanied children.

Justice for Our Neighbors provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant individuals and families in Texas.

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is looking for more child advocates to visit the immigrant kids inside the detention centers weekly and accompany them to immigration proceedings. It is also raising money for advocates who will deal specifically with family separation cases.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is raising money to provide immigrant children "immediate shelter and beds, medical services, counseling and therapy to help them deal with the trauma of family separation."

Together Rising is collecting money that'll go to advocacy groups that are working to reunify immigrant children with their families.

Comfort Cases is raising money to provide backpacks to the separated immigrant children. Each case will contain items such as blankets, pajamas, toiletries, a stuffed animal, a book, a journal and art supplies.

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is training adults who want to become “child advocates” who will work one-on-one with unaccompanied immigrant children while they are subject to deportation proceedings.

Tahirih Justice Center is providing free legal and social services to immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.

The following lawyers and their firms have pledged to help reunify families and
ensure representation for legitimate asylum seekers.

David I. Spector, Chairman & CEO, Akerman LLP
Richard M. Alexander, Chairman, Arnold & Porter
Paul Rawlinson, Global Chair, and Colin Murray, North America Managing Partner,
Baker McKenzie
John C. Sumberg, Chairman, Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP
Joseph F. Ryan, Chairman and CEO, Brown Rudnick LLP
Benjamin B. Klubes and John P. Kromer, Co-Managing Partners, Buckley Sandler
LLP
Michael J. Heller, Executive Chairman and CEO, Cozen O’Connor
Jeffrey P. Gray, Managing Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Michael T. McNamara, Chief Executive Officer, Dentons US LLP
Mark D. Wasserman, Managing Partner, Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP
Richard L. Dickson, Chair, Fenwick & West LLP
Alan M. Fisch, Managing Partner, Fisch Sigler LLP
Peter J. Devlin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fish & Richardson P.C.
David J. Greenwald, Chairman, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Kenneth M. Doran, Chairman and Managing Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Timothy E. Powers, Managing Partner, Haynes and Boone, LLP
Stephen J. Immelt, CEO, Hogan Lovells
John C. Hueston, Co-Founder, Hueston Hennigan LLP
George C. Howell, III, Chair, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Lewis Rose, Managing Partner, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
Paul S. Pearlman, Managing Partner, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Gary M. Wingens is chairman and managing partner of Lowenstein Sandler.
William Quicksilver, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner, Manatt, Phelps
& Phillips, LLP
Ira J. Coleman, Chairman, McDermott, Will & Emery LLP
Michael P. McGee, CEO, Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone P.L.C.
Brad S. Karp, chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Larren N. Nashelsky, Chair, Morrison & Foerster LLP
W. Russell Welsh, Chair, Polsinelli PC
Martin R. Lueck, Chairman, Robins Kaplan LLP
J. Stephen Poor, Chair Emeritus, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
William R. Dougherty, Chairman, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Jeffrey R. Keitelman and Alan M. Klinger, Co-Managing Partners, Stroock &
Stroock & Lavan LLP
Mark Kelly, Chairman, and Scott Wulfe, Managing Partner, Vinson & Elkins LLP
Susan W. Murley and Robert T. Novick, Co-Managing Partners, Wilmer Cutler
Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

Dear Member,
This week I traveled to the border to learn how we can promote access to justice and the rule of law related to the separation of immigrant families. I met with a number of dedicated attorneys and organizations that are working long hours and pouring all of their energies into ensuring that children and parents are reunited and that legal rights are protected through due process of law.

I’m saddened to report that many children are still separated from their parents. Attorneys who visited an adult detention facility recounted women sobbing immediately upon being asked whether their children had been taken away. Others described struggling to explain legal rights to detained children whose sole desire was to be back with their parents. These accounts are from pro bono and legal aid attorneys who are accustomed to working with clients in difficult situations; they said the sorrow they witnessed at these facilities was on a wholly different level.

Your State Bar of Texas exists, in part, to aid the courts in carrying on and improving the administration of justice and to advance the quality of legal services to the public. In that spirit, the State Bar is compiling a list of volunteer trainings and opportunities at texasbar.com/volunteer for those who would like to get involved in reuniting children with their parents.

By far, the greatest need is for Spanish-speaking immigration attorneys to volunteer their time at the border. Many organizations are also seeking monetary donations. The State Bar will continually update the volunteer webpage as resources and information develop.

In my presidential inaugural address last Friday in Houston, I said we are uniquely equipped to address the problems vexing our nation—including the current family separation crisis. This is not about politics. It’s about access to justice. The people involved in this crisis may not be citizens, but they are still entitled to due process in a land that values the rule of law.

Sincerely,
Joe K. Longley
President, State Bar of Texas

By Mark Curriden LOS FRESNOS, TX – (July 2) – Corporate lawyers left the Port Isabel Detention Center exhausted Sunday evening after hearing Honduran and Guatemalan mothers and fathers describe the reasons they fled their homelands. Many were repeatedly gang-raped or forced into prostitution by gangs or beaten because they could not afford a gang-imposed tax. Others were tortured or had family members kidnapped because they witnessed a crime.

Swatting away swarms of mosquitos, the lawyers said detainees – exhausted, confused and emotionally overwhelmed – begged them for legal help and for information about their children, which were taken from them when they were arrested. This weekend, The Texas Lawbook interviewed in-person and on the telephone seven corporate lawyers who worked pro bono for detainees at Port Isabel and two other facilities in South Texas. The stories they tell are horrifying.