The Center for Legal Immigration Assistance. (File photo)
By Jessica Meza, Nebraska Publica Media
Amid a surge in immigration arrests in Nebraska and a growing backlog of related court hearings, Nebraska nonprofits that provide legal help to immigrants are facing a steep increase in people needing legal representation.
Many say there has been an increased need for their services that they are unable to help with in a timely manner.
In the first 10 months of 2025, there was a 329% increase in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Nebraska, compared with the same period in 2024.
The Center for Immigrant & Refugee Advancement (CIRA) and the Center for Legal Immigration Assistance (CLIA) are two non-profits working to provide legal services to immigrants and refugees in need.
Months-long backlog
Roxana Cortés-Mills, CIRA legal director, said that her organization has a three- to six-month waitlist just for a consultation. At the start of March, Cortes-Mills said there were 88 people on the waitlist for a consultation.
Roxana Cortes-Mills
Jonathan Rubio, CLIA legal practitioner, said his organization has a similar backlog. The waitlist there is between four and 12 months for someone to receive legal services. Both non-profits described the wait time as being on a case-by-case basis.
The immigration court backlog means a long waiting period for immigrants to get their cases heard in front of a judge. According to TRAC, an immigration database, Nebraska’s immigration court currently has the longest average wait time in the country.
With an average of 1,121 days waited as of March 20, that’s a nearly 37% increase from 10 years ago during the first Trump administration.
Kevin Ruser, the director of the immigration clinic at the University of Nebraska, said the backlog had been building long before the Trump administration. Ruser dated it back to the 1990s, when meatpacking plants entered the state and an immigrant workforce followed.
CIRA legal director Cortes-Mills added that immigration judges don’t have access to docket management tools anymore due to the current administration getting rid of memos that gave more authority to judges and prosecutors. She believes that these changes have increased the amount of people facing deportation and worsened the backlog.
Jonathan Rubio
Cortes-Mills said that implementing administrative tools would allow judges to have more flexibility and authority on who is actively facing deportation.
Dwindling legal services
While immigrants are struggling to have their day in court, they are also struggling to find adequate representation. Cortes-Mills said that many immigrants who are left without representation either have to represent themselves or self-deport.
At the end of the spring semester, Ruser’s immigration clinic will close down after 28 years. Cortes-Mills said the closure of the clinic will be a blow to efforts to help immigrants.
“Every time an office that provides qualified immigration legal representation closes its doors and reduces the number of legal service providers available to take cases in Nebraska, it affects both the immigrant refugee community, and it affects us – the providers who are currently given that service, because there’s less hands [in] this. There’s less of us,” she said.
Cortes-Mills found her passion for immigration law through the clinic, and she fears that other students won’t have the opportunity,
Cortes-Mills said the changes have greater impacts on immigrants who are living in rural areas – or “legal deserts.” Rubio said those living in rural areas will have to go greater distances to search for legal help.
Though there are no reports or numbers tracked on the current number of immigration attorneys, the non-profits have found that the increased number of cases requires more legal representation and judges to attend to the backlog and dwindling services.
Ruser said he hopes that the appointment of two new immigration judges will help move cases faster.
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