Right to Counsel Compromised When Aliens are Arrested Without Warrant

Dallas, TX (Law Firm Newswire) September 22, 2011 – When an alien is arrested without a warrant, immigration officers are not required to advise the person arrested of the right to counsel or the right to remain silent. So holds the Board of Immigration Appeals in Matter of E-R-M-F & A-R-M decided in August 2011. Only after ICE files its Notice to Appear (“NTA”) with the Immigration Court do the customary advisories of the right to remain silent and right to counsel come into play. But an arrest without warrant under this decision leaves statements made in a subsequent interrogation as admissible in removal proceedings until the NTA is filed.

“The BIA decision that permits Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) free rein to question aliens first and advise them later that they did not have to speak is fundamentally unfair,” said Dallas immigration attorney Stewart Rabinowitz, of the law firm of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. “This invites ICE to intimidate with impunity. All persons should be advised of the fundamental right to remain silent when faced with police interrogation.” The holding flies in the face of fundamental fairness in American jurisprudence – that a person should know before answering that any statements made can be used against him or her and that he or she has a right to counsel before speaking, which is by now a basic concept in our law. “It just does not pass the sniff test,” says Rabinowitz.

Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Dallas-based Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To learn more, contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney at Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C., call 1.972.233.6200 or visit http://www.rabinowitzrabinowitz.com.

Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C.
14901 Quorum Drive, Suite 580
Dallas, Texas 75254
Phone: 972.233.6200

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