As the city’s longest public defender strike since 1982 bleeds into its second week, one immigration attorney will be crossing the picket line to return to work Tuesday in what her union has called an “impossible” and “false” choice.
The Bronx Defenders union, which has been on strike since July 27, said a striking immigration attorney will go back to work Tuesday for a client’s hearing that could end with their deportation if they’re left without representation. The union says that the attorney’s supervisor made a request to push back the hearing until she was back on the job, which was shot down by a federal judge who’s now ordered the striking attorney appear herself – something the union alleges the supervisor knew would happen if they asked to postpone the proceeding and was a hearing the supervisor should have been able to handle on their own.
