SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Securing Help for Im-
migrants through Education and Legal Development Act’’ 
or the ‘‘SHIELD Act’’. 
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) SERVICE AREA.—The term ‘‘service area’’ 
means the jurisdiction or geographical area in which 
an entity carries out activities using funds awarded 
under this Act. 
(2) STATE.—The term ‘‘State’’ means each of 
the several States, the District of Columbia, the 
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States 
Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 
(3) UNIT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT.—The term 
‘‘unit of local government’’ has the meaning given 
such term in section 901(a)(3) of the Omnibus 
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (34 
U.S.C. 10251(a)(3)). 
(4) INDIVIDUAL
FACING
DEPORTATION.—the 
term ‘‘individual facing deportation’’ means an indi-
vidual in a proceeding under section 212(d)(5)(A), 
235(b)(1)(B), 236, 238, 240, or 241 of the Immi-
gration and Nationality Act. 
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SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO LEGAL COUN-
SEL. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) unlike in the criminal legal system, there is 
no right to government-funded legal representation 
for people facing the devastating consequences of de-
tention and deportation who cannot afford a lawyer, 
even children are not entitled to an attorney in these 
complex proceedings; 
(2) as a result, most people in removal pro-
ceedings, including an estimated 80 percent of indi-
viduals held in immigration detention during depor-
tation cases initiated in the past 20 years, are un-
represented and are forced to navigate the complex-
ities of immigration law against trained government 
prosecutors alone; 
(3) the consequences of detention or deporta-
tion are devastating, and can include the loss of lib-
erty, the denial of lawful immigration status or 
United States citizenship, loss of livelihood, separa-
tion from and inability to support family, and life- 
threatening danger in the country of origin; 
(4) legal representation has been proven to sig-
nificantly increase the likelihood of someone being 
released from detention on bond and establishing a 
right to remain in the United States; 
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(5) studies show that detained immigrants with 
attorneys are 3.5 times more likely to be granted 
bond and people in detention with representation are 
up to 10.5 times more likely to obtain relief from de-
portation than those without representation, control-
ling for other factors; 
(6) for nondetained people, 60 percent of indi-
viduals with lawyers win their cases compared to 17 
percent of those without a lawyer; 
(7) the detention and deportation system dis-
proportionately impacts Black immigrants and rein-
forces systemic racism, and ensuring that immi-
grants have access to a lawyer reduces the harms of 
the racial inequities in the immigration system; 
(8) since 2013, local and State governments 
have led the charge on providing public funding for 
deportation defense for their residents facing depor-
tation, with over 55 local and State governments, in-
cluding 10 States, funding these programs; 
(9) the success of local and State publicly fund-
ed deportation defense programs demonstrate the 
positive impact that publicly funded universal rep-
resentation programs have on improving individual 
outcomes, keeping families and communities to-
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gether, and avoiding the resulting social, economic, 
and public health costs of deportation; 
(10) while these local and State programs have 
made a significant impact, they are insufficient to 
meet the need for representation and the Federal 
Government must act to address the significant 
unmet need for legal defense in the Federal immi-
gration system by passing the Fairness to Freedom 
Act of 2023, which establishes a universal right to 
federally funded representation for anyone facing de-
portation, regardless of the individual’s ability to 
pay; 
(11) the growth of these local and State pro-
grams and the resulting staffing recruitment chal-
lenges have also further highlighted the acute need 
to develop and grow a legal and social services staff-
ing and infrastructure to address the unmet rep-
resentational needs for immigrants facing deporta-
tion; 
(12) infrastructure must be built to maintain a 
highly skilled and sustainable legal defense work-
force equipped with the tools to implement high- 
quality, independent legal representation regardless 
of the individual’s ability to pay, prior contact with 
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the criminal legal system, or the nature or perceived 
strength of their legal defense; and 
(13) in its 2023 Report ‘‘Access to Justice in 
Federal Administrative Proceedings’’, the Legal Aid 
Interagency Roundtable outlines the harms that un-
represented individuals face in Federal administra-
tive proceedings, including immigration court, and 
their core strategy of increasing representation and 
assistance by lawyers and nonlawyers for people in 
administrative proceedings. 
SEC. 4. IMMIGRATION LEGAL SERVICES STAFF AND INFRA-
STRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General, acting 
through the Director of the Office of Access to Justice, 
shall award competitive workforce development and capac-
ity building grants to eligible entities that are seeking to 
expand access to representation for individuals facing de-
portation by increasing the workforce and strengthening 
the legal services infrastructure needed to provide such 
representation. 
(b) ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA.—An entity eligible to re-
ceive a grant under this section is a— 
(1) State or unit of local government that has 
allocated public funds towards the provision of immi-
gration-related legal services, including legal rep-
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(1) workforce recruitment and training pro-
grams, such as educational, fellowship, clinical, job 
recruitment, and job training services aimed at in-
creasing the number of lawyers, accredited rep-
resentatives, social workers, and community naviga-
tors entering the immigration legal services field; 
(2) technical assistance services, such as— 
(A) substantive and technical skills-based 
trainings to improve the quality of representa-
tion provided to individuals facing deportation; 
(B) language training to ensure legal staff 
are equipped to provide linguistically appro-
priate services; 
(C) specialized legal support to support 
representation in complex defense cases, includ-
ing representation in Federal court and State 
court; and 
(D) 
leadership 
development, 
including 
management training and establishing appro-
priate supervisory systems; 
(3) local or regional coordination services to en-
sure a coordinated and efficient delivery of legal 
services to individuals facing deportation; 
(4) retention improvement strategies to ensure 
sustainable growth of the immigration-related legal 
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services field, including strategies to address case-
load management, burnout, and organizational sys-
tems; 
(5) recruiting and retaining legal staff from 
underrepresented backgrounds and promoting diver-
sity within the legal services field; 
(6) growing legal services infrastructure and 
representational capacity in locations with a signifi-
cant unmet need for legal representation and with 
significantly less immigration-related legal services 
capacity in their service area than national averages; 
and 
(7) physical, administrative, and technological 
infrastructure resources in coordination with a use 
of funds described in paragraphs (1) through (6). 
(e) CONTRACTS AND SUBAWARDS.—A recipient of a 
grant under this section may, for purposes authorized 
under subsection (d), use all or a portion of that grant 
to contract with or make one or more subawards to one 
or more— 
(1) community-based organization, nonprofit or-
ganization, private organization, or educational insti-
tution; or 
(2) units of local government. 
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(f) CONDITIONS.—As a condition of receiving a grant 
under this section, an eligible entity shall— 
(1) submit to the Attorney General a certifi-
cation that the proposed uses of grant funds by the 
entity— 
(A) are consistent with this section; and 
(B) meet the criteria determined by the 
Attorney General, in consultation with the Di-
rector of the Office of Access to Justice; and 
(2) not later than 90 days after the end of each 
fiscal year for which an entity receives grant funds 
under this section, submit to the Director of the Of-
fice of Access to Justice a report that describes— 
(A) the types of services being provided 
under the grant; 
(B) the service area; 
(C) the number of individuals recruited or 
retained through services funded under the 
grant; 
(D) the impact that staffing recruitment 
and retention has had on organizational capac-
ity to represent more individuals within the 
service area; 
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(E) the actual expenditures made in con-
nection with the grant, including personnel and 
staffing structure and indirect costs; 
(F) the outcomes of services; and 
(G) a description of the continuing unmet 
representation needs of individuals facing de-
portation in the service area and recommenda-
tions of supports and resources needed to meet 
them. 
(g) GRANT TERM.—The term of a grant under this 
section shall be 4 years, and such grant may be renewed. 
(h) SUPPLEMENT OF NON-FEDERAL FUNDS.—Any 
Federal funds received under this section shall be used 
to supplement, not supplant, Federal or non-Federal 
funds that would otherwise be available for activities fund-
ed under this section. 
SEC. 5. AUTHORITY AND DUTIES OF THE ADMINISTERING 
AGENCY. 
(a) DUTIES OF THE DIRECTOR.—The Director of the 
Office of Access to Justice may promulgate such rules, 
policies, and procedures as may be necessary and appro-
priate to carry out the grant program under this Act, in-
cluding the following: 
(1) Establishing competitive grantmaking pro-
cedures to identify grant recipients. 
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(2) Targeting grants in a manner that best ac-
complishes the following objectives and priorities: 
(A) Advancing a legal services workforce 
trained and equipped to implement an inde-
pendent legal defense for individuals facing de-
portation that ensures high-quality, independent 
legal representation, regardless of ability to pay, 
prior contact with the criminal legal system, or 
the nature or perceived strength of their legal 
defense. 
(B) A national legal services infrastructure 
scaled to meet the representation needs of all 
individuals facing deportation. 
(C) Long-term growth of organizational or 
programmatic capacity to provide high-quality, 
holistic, and linguistically appropriate legal 
services to individuals facing deportation. 
(D) Providing support to State and local 
governments that have taken leadership and de-
veloped expertise in providing public funding for 
the legal defense of individuals facing deporta-
tion. 
(E) Addressing the crisis of lack of rep-
resentation in parts of the country where such 
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