作義工的律師們

川普的移民政策是一概不接受中美洲來的難民。ICE把難民當作罪犯關押起來，拆散了不少家庭。日前聯邦政府法庭有位法官命令川普政府，所有孩子立即歸回他們的難民家長，但限期已過，有好幾百個孩子至今無法回到父母身邊，因為他們的父母似乎已被驅逐出境了。

嘿，他們不是美國人，他們的基本人權不受美國法律保護，無處告狀！不過，今天看見一篇《財富》雜誌報導，有一大批律師手癢，決心和川普政府作對，起來幫助那些「非法移民」。這讓人耳目一新。

Veronica Walther wasn’t planning to spend July 4 in an immigration detention center. But when she learned she could volunteer to help detainees at Karnes County Residential Center—a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility outside San Antonio holding women and children—she cleared her schedule, bought a plane ticket and reserved a hotel room and rental car. 這位Walther律師聽說她有機會作義工，幫助移民和海关执法机构拘留所的一些被拘留的婦女兒童，立刻安排時間，買機票、訂旅館、租車前往德州。

She also brought her semiretired interpreter mom, who volunteered for attorneys who didn’t speak Spanish.她還帶了半退休、會說西班牙語的母親一同前往，因為有些其他作義工的律師不會講西班牙語，需要翻譯。

For a week, Walther assisted about 20 women mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—Central America’s troubled Northern Triangle—who had been detained after entering the U.S. to seek asylum for themselves and their children because they said they feared for their lives in their home countries. “All of them took enormous risks to get to the border to avoid being killed,” said Walther, who speaks fluent Spanish. “I didn’t meet a single woman who I thought was lying or even embellishing her story.” 她一星期幫助了20名從中美洲國家（萨尔瓦多、危地马拉、和洪都拉斯）來的婦女辦理難民申請手續。每人都是冒了極大的生命危險來的，沒有一個給她看到是編造或修飾了自己的故事。

Lost in the noise over the Trump administration’s policies at the border is the difference between illegal immigrants and people seeking legal asylum. Walther, who runs her own law firm in Minneapolis, is now organizing other attorneys to volunteer remotely, helping prepare legal briefs on behalf of asylum seekers, or to volunteer in the detention centers themselves. She’s also handling pro bono the asylum case of a Honduran family she met at Karnes. They recently moved to Minneapolis with the help of a sponsor family after being released—Walther met them on her plane home. 非法移民和尋求合法庇護的人是不同的，Walther現在協調其他律師進行遠程協助，為尋求庇護的人辦手續，或者親自前來移民拘留所。她還無償協助了一個難民家庭安置去到明尼蘇達州，當然是有贊助家庭。

Walther is one of a growing number of lawyers, interpreters and other professionals across the U.S. claimed as members of Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit whose founder says it’s nonpartisan, but progressive. (The group said that 10 percent to 15 percent of its 125,000 Facebook followers are active members, by either volunteering or donating.) Little known outside legal circles, the organization was launched as a Facebook group the day after Donald Trump was elected president. L4GG screens attorneys such as Walther—who heads the group’s Minnesota chapter—and funnels them to legal services groups. “L4GG has people who identify as independents, Republicans, Democrats—it’s all across the spectrum,” she said. 一個進步的捍衛民主和公平體制的律師協會L4GG，2016年在臉書社交平台成立，Walther律師是其中的一員。

After the first Trump administration ban on travel to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries, the group directed hundreds of lawyers via the web to airports across the nation, coordinated volunteers with legal services groups and had international members hand out know-your-rights flyers in more than 20 languages at airports around the world. L4GG also runs programs in areas including prevention of voter suppression and environmental protection. Adam Cohen, a Westchester, N.Y., attorney who joined L4GG’s board of directors last year, said there are a lot of attorneys out there “dying to do something, not just donate money.” 去年川普政府禁止穆斯林為主國家的人入境，L4GG指導協調了幾百律師趕到各地機場，義務提供法律幫助。又請國際朋友在世界各地的機場分發各種語言的單張，通知遊客他們在美國的合法權益。

But showing up isn’t all that’s needed—many practitioners have little or no experience in these arenas. Full-time civil rights advocates such as Terri Burke, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, welcome the outpouring, with the caveat that volunteers need to be trained and managed to be effective. 專門倡導民權的ACLU執行董事Terri Burke培訓義工。

There’s a “huge need” for lawyers at the border, Burke said. “I’ve asked our staff to research how we can connect these volunteer attorneys to these public defenders.” But Burke stresses that donations remain critical: “The money is still very important in order for us to do what we need to do.” 律師們雖是作義工，仍然需要捐款支持。

“It’s up to people who are willing to go down there and stand up for these people.”

While the ACLU has said it’s hiring almost 100 new employees to supplement its 436 staffers, L4GG has only one employee: founder, president, and executive director Traci Feit Love, a Harvard Law School graduate and former litigator for DLA Piper, one of the biggest law firms in the world. She and her board have been figuring out how to direct L4GG’s volunteers—a significant chunk of the 1.34 million attorneys in the U.S.—to make them useful. L4GG只有一人受薪：Traci Feit Love。

“For us, the question is really how can we connect this massive network of lawyers from all over the country,” said Love, 41, who works out of her Atlanta home. The answer, in part, is to work with established organizations in need of help that aren’t really set up to handle the recruitment, training and management of volunteers, she said.

L4GG’s latest big initiative is Project Corazon, which in early July started providing legal services to reunite immigrant families split up by the Trump administration. More than 40 major law firms have joined the effort to send lawyers for weeklong stints, donate money and provide other resources. “We are trying to take some of the burden off of the legal services nonprofits,” said Jackie Haberfeld, the head of pro bono counsel for the New York and Boston offices of Kirkland & Ellis, a member of the L4GG project. L4GG最近發起協助那些被川普政府分開的移民家庭，使孩子儘快回到父母身邊的活動，有40多家大型的律師事務所參加，都是無償的服務。