The Justice Department has quietly gutted a more than 60-year-old program created to ensure that low-income and indigent immigrants can receive competent and affordable legal representation, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell CBS News.
The Recognition and Accreditation program, which is part of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, accredits non-attorneys who work for largely faith-based legal advocacy organizations such as Catholic Charities and Jewish Family Services so they are authorized to assist immigrants on everything from naturalization petitions to representation in DOJ’s immigration courts.
The handful of senior attorneys who operate the program were abruptly reassigned to work in immigration courts last week, leaving in place only two support staff with no legal authority to approve or renew accreditation applications, sources with direct knowledge said.
The reassignment orders came from Jamee Comans, the acting Assistant Director for the Office of Policy, which administers the accreditation program. Comans was previously an immigration judge in Louisiana, and last September, she ordered the deportation of pro-Palestinian protester and former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil to either Algeria or Syria. Comans could not be immediately reached for comment.
The attorneys showed up to their new work locations on Monday, where most were told they’ve been reassigned to work as entry-level law clerks — a job typically reserved for people who are fresh out of law school, the sources added.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment, saying the office cannot discuss personnel matters. A government official told CBS that the program “isn’t ending or being abolished. It is a longstanding program established by regulation and will continue.”
There has been no public announcement about any of the changes in the program.
The spokesperson did not answer questions from CBS News about the fate of the program, though close to the time that CBS News sought comment, the EOIR assigned two other employees to review pending applications, the sources said.
The program currently accredits more than 2,600 non-attorneys across more than 900 recognized programs, legal experts told CBS.
The majority of those are partially accredited to assist immigrants with representation before the Department of Homeland Security as they petition for immigration benefits, such as green cards, naturalization or lawful status on humanitarian grounds.
A smaller portion are fully accredited, which means they are allowed to represent immigrants in proceedings before the Justice Department’s immigration courts.
Anna Gallagher, the executive director of Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc, also known as CLINIC, said that as of Monday morning, the program had sent out its weekly Monday email and appeared to be operating normally. But the removal of its lawyers, she said, is “alarming.”
“This program saves lives and it also helps alleviate the backlogs in the immigration system,” said Gallagher, who noted that her organization’s 400 affiliates provided legal services to over half a million people in 2025.
“Lawyers can’t cover the need and any attempt to slow down the program is just going to gum up a stressed and already broken system.”
The Justice Department has already taken numerous other steps to make it more challenging for immigrants to navigate the legal system.
Last year, the department removed the head of the Office of Legal Access Programs and gutted most of its legal orientation services that helped prepare vulnerable immigrants such as unaccompanied children and families to navigate the legal system, and the department fired or removed more than 100 immigration judges.
Last fall, the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals mandated that anyone who crossed the border unlawfully without inspection should be held without bond — a decision that has strained government resources and flooded the federal district courts with habeas corpus petitions from immigrants seeking their release from detention.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department imposed new rules that make it much harder for immigrants to appeal adverse rulings, a move lawyers predict will soon overwhelm the federal appellate courts next.
As of Monday afternoon, staff received word that the accreditation program is being shifted to a different office called the Public Resources Program, which is already understaffed, sources said.
The removal of staff from the accreditation program represents “one more nail in the coffin to how the courts can operate fairly and be expected to be a balanced, impartial institution of justice that Americans expect out of our immigration courts and all courts nationwide,” said Greg Chen, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
He added that accredited representatives are vital to the legal system. “Most of these people don’t understand the legal system, let alone immigration law, and also are going to have limited English capacity to be able to navigate a highly complex process through the courts,” he said.
The Recognition and Accreditation program, which was created through federal regulation, has its roots in the faith-based community, where religious organizations felt it was their calling to help low-income individuals navigate the bureaucratic immigration legal system.
The removal of all of the lawyers who work for the program represents “an attack on freedom of religion,” said Peggy Gleason, a lawyer at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, whose organization helps train some of the accredited representatives.
“The reason these programs started in the 1950s is because the churches and faith-based organizations felt they had a pastoral duty to help this group of people.”
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