As immigration enforcement in Arizona communities has increased to historically high levels, only half of immigrants with cases filed this past summer were represented by attorneys.
As of August 2026, just 49% of immigration cases filed in the last 90 days had legal representation. But among all pending cases in Arizona immigration courts, including those filed months or years earlier, 63.6% of immigrants are represented. That rate places Arizona among the 15 states with the highest rate of legal representation in immigration court nationally.
That data was collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which analyzed representation numbers as of August 2026.
The numbers look at attorney representation of people moving through civil immigration court, where there is no legal right to an attorney, including for children.
“While the government is always represented in Court by an attorney, this is not true for the immigrant,” the report said. “While many communities including law firms and clinics attempt to provide legal assistance on a pro bono basis, their numbers have been insufficient to meet the need. As a result, the overall odds of having representation in Immigration Court completed cases has dropped from 63 percent in FY 2021 to 32 percent in FY 2026.”
In August 2026, only one in four immigrants across the country, including children, had an attorney to assist them in cases where they were facing deportation, the clearinghouse data shows.
Tucson-based immigrant rights legal group the Florence Project advocates for universal representation where every immigrant has a lawyer, pointing to the public defender approach as a model.
When the Trump administration pulled funding from a nationwide network of groups providing legal services for unaccompanied minors this summer, tens of thousands of immigrant children became at risk of moving through the immigration system with no legal support. The Florence Project is among the groups that promised to continue to provide legal aid to children while they were able to do so.
But the gaps in representation in Arizona go beyond immigration court. In 2024, Arizona ranked 49th out of 50 states in the number of lawyers per 1,000 residents, according to the American Bar Association.
The state had a 4.47% drop in the number of active attorneys between 2015 and 2025, according to the attorney group.
The state Supreme Court announced an apprenticeship program for law school graduates in 2024 to create a new pathway to practice in Arizona. The Arizona Lawyer Apprentice Program was created to boost the low number of attorneys in the state.
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