American Journalist
The Marshall Project
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
Julia writes:
They are children who were caught crossing the southwest border without papers and sent to migrant shelters in New York when the coronavirus was silently spreading. Now the city is a pandemic epicenter in lockdown, but the Trump administration is pressing ahead with their deportation cases, forcing the children to fight in immigration court to stay.
In two courthouses in the center of the besieged city, hearings for unaccompanied children—migrants who were apprehended without a parent—are speeding forward. The U.S. Department of Justice, which controls the immigration courts, has said it has no plan to suspend them.
This week an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a teenage single mother with an infant were preparing for imminent court dates and deadlines in New York, lawyers representing them said. With children trapped indoors in shelters and foster-care homes, many young migrants who don’t have lawyers may not even be aware of ongoing court cases that could quickly end with orders for them to be deported.
Hearings for unaccompanied children are also proceeding in courts in other COVID-19 hotspots, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Boston.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency in charge of the immigration courts, has rejected calls from judges, prosecutors and immigration lawyers to shut down courts nationwide. Although hearings for immigrants who are not detained have been suspended through May 1, cases of people in detention are going forward at the same accelerated pace as before the pandemic.
That includes many unaccompanied children. Since last year, Trump administration officials have instructed the courts to treat those children as detained if they are in shelters or foster care under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, a federal agency. Immigration judges are under pressure to complete detained cases within 60 days—warp speed in immigration court—with no exception for children.
Across the country, about 3,100 unaccompanied children are currently in the custody of the refugee agency. Many have run from deadly violence and abuse at home and hope to find safety with family members in the United States. The demands for them to meet fast-moving court requirements are causing alarm among lawyers, caregivers and families.
“It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, which helps provide lawyers for unaccompanied children. Unlike in criminal courts, in immigration court children have no right to a lawyer paid by the government if they cannot afford one.
On April 8, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the immigration bar, and other legal groups asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to force the Justice Department to suspend in-person hearings of detained immigrants during the pandemic.
Justice Department officials say they are holding hearings for immigrants in detention, including for children, so they can get their cases decided and perhaps be freed quickly.
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Read the rest of Julia’s report at the link.
The idea, as DOJ claims, that this is being done to facilitate the “freeing” of kids is preposterous on its face.
First, there is nothing stopping them from arranging placements for children without the Immigration Court hearings being completed. It used to be done all the time.
Second, the DOJ has intentionally and unethically rewritten asylum laws through “precedents” aimed primarily at making it harder to qualify for asylum. This abuse of process particularly targets those fleeing persecution resulting from various types of systematic government and societal violence in Central America. The approval rates for these types of cases have fallen to minuscule levels under Trump.
Third, no child has any chance of succeeding in Immigration Court without a lawyer. Almost all lawyers who represent children in Immigration Court serve “pro bono” — or work for NGOs who can only provide minimal salaries.
Yet, the Administration is making these lawyers risk their health and safety, while artificially accelerating the process, all of which actively and aggressively discourages representation.
Added to that is the constant “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” with Immigration Courts closing, reopening, and re-closing on a moment’s notice and dockets constantly being rearranged as judges, court support staff, interpreters, and DHS lawyers fall ill.
The Administration could work with groups like KIND and other NGOs to arrange placements, and schedule hearings in a manner that promotes health and safety for everyone while maximizing due process. But, the Administration refuses to do this.
Instead, those seeking to inject sanity, common sense, best practices, and human decency into the process are forced to sue the Administration in Federal Court. This further dissipates and diverts already scarce legal resources that could have been used to actually represent children in Immigration Court and arrange safe placements for them.
Finally, as I have noted previously, the Administration has simply suspended the operation of the Constitution and the rule of law at the borders. This means that thousands, including unaccompanied children, are “orbited into the void” without any process whatsoever or any effort to ascertain their situations or best interests.
All of this gives lie to the Administration’s bogus claim that this is about looking out for the best interests of these kids. No, it’s about maximizing cruelty, destroying lives (considered an effective and acceptable “deterrent” in nativist circles), and carrying out a noxious racist White Nationalist restrictionist immigration agenda.
And, to date, Congress and the Federal Courts, both of which have the power to put an end to this disgraceful, unlawful, and unconstitutional conduct have been largely “MIA.”
Nevertheless, thanks to courageous and dedicated journalists like Julia and organizations like KIND, a public record is being made. While those responsible for implementing and enabling these abuses directed at the “most vulnerable of the vulnerable” among us are likely to escape legal accountability, they will eventually be tried and found wanting in the “court of history.”
Due Process Forever! Trump’s Child Abuse Never!
PWS
04-10-20