Estuardo Cifuentes, project manager of Proyecto Corazón, which offers legal guidance to immigrants, has seen the same thing. “After the elections we began to see an increase in the number of inquiries through our WhatsApp number or our Facebook page. If before we received between 30 or 40 messages a day, now we receive about 150 messages a day,” he says.

Since 2021, Lawyer for Good Government has operated Project Corazon in South Texas, pairing attorneys with migrants and asylum-seekers who cross the border and need free legal representation.

The organization focuses on the most vulnerable populations and its representatives have previously told Border Report that there are always thousands of clients in need of legal help.

“We support this announcement from President Biden but it probably isn’t enough. There are thousands of people at the border who need help,” Youssef told Border Report on Thursday.

Youssef was critical of the executive order Biden issued in early June, limiting asylum claims to only those with CBP One app appointments and who cross at legal ports of entry. The new rules prevent asylum claims from those who enter the United States illegally when the number of encounters of daily migrants exceeds 2,500 for seven days.

The order also has the potential to clash with state immigration laws, according to Priscilla Orta, director of Lawyers For Good Government's legal clinic for asylum seekers, Project Corazon. Orta, who is based in Texas, pointed to Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star as well as pending State Bill 4, which would prohibit sanctuary city policies that prevent police officers from inquiring as to a person's immigration status.

"The biggest issue is not even this law, this proclamation, but rather, how it is going to interplay with the laws of Texas? And in addition, Arizona is passing similar laws to Texas and many other states are passing similar types of laws," Orta said in a phone call on Tuesday. "So, the question is, how many people are we going to put in jail for 20 years, and how many people are just going to die in Mexico?"

Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), the largest community of human rights lawyers and operated by Proyecto Corazón, a legal clinic for asylum seekers in the Rio Grande Valley, argued that the measure poses a serious threat to rights and safety of countless vulnerable people.

The proposed order will give CBP unilateral power for the next 14 days to temporarily suspend the entry of people seeking asylum across the southern border and deport those who enter the United States outside of border checkpoints without processing their asylum applications. asylum.

Priscilla Orta is a supervising attorney with the nonprofit Lawyers For Good Government, which offers pro bono legal services to asylum-seekers. She says enticing lawyers to go down the immigration law path is tough, it’s even tougher if there are fewer out there.

“It’s a perfect storm. More people aren’t going to law school. More people are coming. It’s very difficult to be an immigration lawyer, not just financially but emotionally. And those of us who are still in the business, we do not have the funding we need to help more people. We can help many more people but we need more support,” Orta told Border Report on Wednesday.

Each judge closed on average around 975 cases in Fiscal Year 2022, but it is not nearly enough to close the backlog, says Priscilla Orta, of Lawyer for Good Government.

“This is like, you know, a classic, I Love Lucy episode when they’re trying to catch the chocolates. It’s just not gonna happen. There’s not enough people,” says Orta, supervising attorney for the nonprofit’s Project Corazon, which is based in Brownsville and helps to provide free legal services for asylum seekers.

But Priscilla Orta, a supervising attorney at Brownsville, Texas-based Lawyers for Good Government, which provides legal aid to migrants, said separations aren’t common in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, noting that Customs and Border Protection drops people off at designated locations. Few migrants stay overnight because even if family members are processed separately, there is little delay before they reunite at a welcome center. Spouses are often processed together, she said.

“If you came here you’d have absolutely no idea that thousands of people were processed daily,” Orta said. “There’s zero chaos.”

Priscilla Orta, supervising attorney of Project Corazon at Lawyers for Good Government, said curtailing asylum protections would contribute to human rights violations around the world.

“If this proposed deal goes through, thousands of refugees fleeing for their lives will be returned to their home countries to once again face persecution and death. Many will die,” she said. “These changes to asylum law would violate our international obligations and decimate decades-old immigration laws that were passed with almost unanimous support. We categorically oppose any attempts to build even higher barriers to asylum and reject Trump-like attempts to dismantle our asylum system. We are better than this.”