Orlando criminal defense attorney Jose Rivas has spent his career protecting clients’ rights. But nothing prepared him for what happens when those clients disappear into the federal immigration system. ICE custody creates many barriers that make normal defense work much harder. In an interview with Orlando Spectrum News 13, Rivas calls it “a challenging situation.”
When Talking Becomes Almost Impossible
The problems start the moment ICE takes custody. When defending clients in ICE custody, attorneys face barriers that would shock people in other areas of law. Rivas explains the big difference: when his clients are held by local authorities like Orange County, he can talk to them by phone or video calls. But after ICE picks them up, he can go weeks without knowing where his client is.
“What we’re seeing is we don’t have time. When you’re in a detention center, you’re going to get desperate, and we can feel our clients getting desperate,” Rivas told Spectrum News 13. “They say, ‘I’m just not going to fight it. I’m going to plead guilty, and I’m just going to leave and give up.” This desperation comes from a system where attorney-client communication becomes rare instead of a basic right.
The Transfer Problem: When Clients Disappear in ICE Custody
Recently, the Orange County Commission ratified a controversial addendum to their ICE agreement, allowing county corrections officers to transport immigration detainees in ICE custody to federal facilities, including the Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Research shows that ICE transferring detainees hurts legal help badly. Transfers make it hard for detainees to get lawyers. They get moved far from families and friends who could help them. Many remote places where ICE moves detainees have fewer lawyers and free legal help.
New Strategies in a Broken System
“Detained immigrants with legal help are 10 times more likely to win their immigration cases than those without lawyers. They are also seven times more likely to be released from custody. Yet about 80% of detained immigrants have no lawyer in immigration court.”
Faced with these problems, attorneys like Rivas have found new ways to work. He now tells clients not to pay their bond so they can stay in local custody longer. This allows him more time to build their cases. This unusual approach shows how ICE custody client communication difficulties have forced defense attorneys to change how they normally work.
“You’ve got to get the case dismissed. We have to fight it now more than ever and we need our clients to stay in custody for as long as possible so we can at least try to resolve the case,” Rivas said. Most of his clients are not facing violent crimes, which makes his strategy both practical and ethical.
A Hidden Constitutional Crisis
Legal groups have found barriers to attorney access to clients in ICE custody all over the country. At 173 out of about 192 ICE detention facilities, almost every way for detainees and attorneys to communicate is broken. These failures are more than just problems—they violate due process rights.
The results are clear and serious. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, detained immigrants with legal help are 10 times more likely to win their immigration cases than those without lawyers. Undocumented immigrants in ICE custody are also seven times more likely to be released from custody. Yet about 80% of detained immigrants have no lawyer in immigration court.
The Effect on Families
The human cost goes beyond the detained people. During an interview at Rivas’ office, a mother whose son is detained at an ICE facility in the Everglades talked about the uncertainty families face. “We didn’t know what he was going to go through. We didn’t know if he was going to be mistreated, if he was going to be able to sleep well, what were the type of people that would be around him,” she said.
While her son has been able to talk to her every day, Rivas says that once he finds his clients in places like the Everglades, there’s no way to know when he—their lawyer—can talk to them regularly. Which makes it very difficult to get them to immigration court to resolve the case.
Technology Problems in an Outdated System
The barriers go beyond physical moves to basic communication tools. At least 58 ICE detention facilities don’t let attorneys schedule phone calls with detained clients at specific times. About 85% of facilities charge detained immigrants for calls to their lawyers. These costs are often too expensive for poor clients.
When attorneys try to use modern communication tools, they face more obstacles. Many facilities don’t allow electronics. This stops access to remote interpretation services. Video conferencing abilities are unclear at most facilities. Only 12 out of 68 facilities that said they had video actually had information on ICE’s website.
The Professional Duty Problem
These barriers put attorneys in an impossible spot regarding their professional duties. The American Bar Association’s rules require lawyers to keep clients informed about case status and respond to reasonable requests for information. When ICE’s detention system makes basic communication with clients in ICE custody impossible, attorneys face potential ethics violations for no fault of their own.
Criminal defense lawyers also have duties under Padilla v. Kentucky to tell noncitizen clients about immigration consequences of criminal charges. These duties become meaningless when attorneys can’t reliably communicate with clients after ICE custody detention starts.
A System Built to Fail
The evidence suggests these barriers are not accidents of an overworked system. They seem to be features of a detention system designed to discourage legal challenges. ICE custody puts most detention facilities in remote locations, far from immigration attorneys. The combination of remote locations, communication barriers, and frequent transfers creates what advocates describe as a system where detained immigrants “have no fighting chance.”
Bilingual criminal defense attorneys do more than translate. They offer cultural knowledge that helps clients deal with a system built around English legal ideas. When clients in ICE custody get moved to remote detention facilities, these cultural connections become even more important for trust and good communication.
Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney Jose Rivas is a veteran bilingual TV Legal Analyst who has appeared on Univision, Fox News, Telemundo, and many other news outlets.