Beginning on November 21, 1987, approximately 2,500 Cuban detainees in a federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, and a federal detention center in Oakdale, Louisiana, rioted in order to protest their impending deportation to Cuba.1 To quell the riots, U.S. Department of Justice officials agreed to guarantee them "full, fair and equitable" Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) repatriation panel review hearings to reconsider their eligibility to remain in the United States.2 On March 24, 1988, I was contacted by the Coalition to Support Detainees Project Due Process and asked if I could help coordinate an effort to provide volunteer advocates for the Cuban detainees during their INS panel review hearings at the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri. I agreed.