Sonoma County has Bay Area’s lowest immigration court representation rate

And they're often issuing these removal orders, these deportation orders, in mass to people who didn't even know their hearing was scheduled.

Official response and confirmed impact

Because they're just trying to move through the system. And also a lot of judges have been fired.

So there's very few judges overseeing thousands and thousands of cases.

And then when we zoom in on these people who are on these mass dockets receiving these removal orders, less than 50% of Sonoma's pending immigration cases even have a lawyer.

So that's the lowest share we saw in the Bay Area and 10 points below the regional rate of 56%, which is still very low.

But this matters because that means 3,000 immigrants in Sonoma County are going through this process without an attorney.

National studies have shown that 63% of immigrants that go through the system with attorney representation win some sort of relief.

Without an attorney, only 13% win relief.