SEATTLE (AP) — The director of a Seattle-based immigrant rights group says his organization is eager to get back to work with permission from a federal judge.

A judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked a Justice Department decision that immigrant legal rights organizations around the country say would curtail much of the work they do.

Jorge Baron, executive director of the nonprofit Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, says his attorneys have been turning away requests for legal assistance from three to four dozen people a week, many of them in detention, since the Justice Department sent a cease-and-desist letter last month saying it could not provide certain legal assistance to immigrants unless it undertakes formal representation of them in court.

The nonprofit said the order would force it and similar groups to give up preparing motions and other documents on behalf of immigrants who represent themselves.

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