While the government is always represented in Immigration Court by an attorney, this is not true for the immigrant. Unlike in criminal proceedings, the federal government is not required to provide legal counsel to those without the means to hire an attorney. While many communities, including law firms and clinics attempt to provide legal assistance on a pro bono basis, the number of available attorneys has been insufficient to meet the need. As a result, the overall odds of having representation when the case is decided has dropped from 63 percent in FY 2021 to 32 percent in FY 2026 and is generally continuing to drop each month.

Efforts to expand the supply of immigration attorneys did increase their numbers so that the number of individuals with representation initially grew when the pace of case dispositions began growing after the end of the COVID-19 shutdown. However, the number of individuals represented in Immigration Court peaked in FY 2024. During FY 2025 and FY 2026, the number of immigrants with representation has actually dropped.

Where immigrants live, however, substantially impacts their ability to obtain representation. For example, seven out of ten (70.5%) new immigrants to Maine had already found representation in new cases arriving at the Immigration Court in the last 90 days, This state tops the list of states with the highest representation rates for new Court cases.

Hawaii follows closely behind Maine also with seven out of ten (70.2%) residents receiving Notices to Appear (NTAs) in Immigrant Court in the last 90 days already finding representation. In third place was West Virginia (65.5%), followed by Maryland (59.1%), and Massachusetts (56.8%) with a number of other states close behind with half or more finding representation.

At the other extreme with the lowest proportion of its residents who had found representation after receiving NTAs in the last 90 days was New Jersey. Fewer than one out of five (18.2%) individuals residing in New Jersey had found representation. Other states with particularly low initial representation rates were Alaska (24.0%), Kentucky (24.3%), Arkansas (24.5%) and Illinois (25.6%). Typically, representation rates do increase as immigrants have more time to locate representation. But this isn’t always the case. For example, Idaho had 31.0 percent represented in recent cases, but only 21.9 percent represented in all its pending cases.

Read the full report for additional details including national trends and further state-by-state details on representation rates.