The New York State Bar Association is urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature to establish a right to counsel in immigration proceedings.

If passed into law, New York would become the first state in the nation to have such a statutory requirement. The association is also supporting a position taken by the American Bar Association calling for a federally funded system of appointed counsel for indigent defendants facing removal from the country.

“We must ensure for immigrants due process and that the principles of fundamental fairness are observed in any judicial setting in which they appear,” NYSBA president Hank Greenberg said in a press release that is to be released today.

A study by the American Immigration Council showed the disparity in outcomes for immigrants who do not have an attorney. Of those who fought against removal from the country, 78% of never-detained represented immigrants won compared to just 15% of never-detained unrepresented immigrants. About 32% of detained represented immigrants won their case compared to just 3% of unrepresented detained immigrants.

The resolution asking the state government to approve the right to counsel and an accompanying report were presented by the Committee on Immigration Representation at the House of Delegates meeting Saturday in Cooperstown. Camille Mackler, director of immigration legal policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, and Sarah F. Rogerson, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Albany Law School, chaired the committee.

New York's immigration court backlog has more than doubled from just over 47,000 in 2012 to more than 110,000 in the first quarter of 2019, according to the report. At the same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and deportations in New York have far surpassed the national averages, with a 35% jump in arrests from 2017 to 2018 and a 29% increase in deportations.