Evil Twins, Notorious Child Abusers
A new “white paper” investigation from UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy documents shocking abuses already being inflicted on children Immigration Court even as Congress and the Administration look for more ways to strip asylum seekers of legal rights and human dignity:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This white paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the Biden
administration’s treatment of children facing removal in immigra-
tion court. While much attention has rightly been given to the Biden
administration’s border and asylum policy, less attention has been
paid to child-specific policies in immigration court. This matters
both because tens of thousands of removal orders have been issued
against children during the Biden administration, and because chil-
dren’s cases present unique legal issues—including most obviously
that children generally bear little, if any, legal responsibility for the
situations in which they find themselves.
We find that the Biden administration took important steps at the
outset to protect children in ways the prior administration did
not. The decision to exempt children from the border expulsion
policy known as Title 42 was particularly significant in this respect.
However, for children who were permitted to enter the system and
ordered to appear for proceedings in immigration court, the Biden
administration has largely continued the policies of previous admin-
istrations. Those policies have utterly failed to protect the rights of
children in court.
These failures are all the more striking because they have continued
even as the administration has signaled support for the principle
that children deserve legal representation in immigration court as
a matter of basic fairness. Department of Homeland Security Sec-
retary Mayorkas—the nation’s foremost immigration enforcement
official—has repeatedly stated that he does not believe children can
receive fair removal hearings without legal representation, even as
prosecutors under his purview have proceeded with thousands of
such hearings and obtained thousands of removal orders against
unrepresented children through those grossly unfair processes.
The administration’s policies toward children in immigration court
have far-reaching impacts. In the first five months of Fiscal Year 2022,
almost one third of all new cases in immigration court involved chil-
dren, including tens of thousands of children under the age of five.1
Some of these children are “unaccompanied” because they arrived
1 TRAC, One-Third of New Immigration Court Cases
Are Children; One in Eight Are 0-4 Years of Age
(Mar. 17, 2022), https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/
reports/681/.
NO FAIR DAY: THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S TREATMENT OF CHILDREN IN IMMIGRATION COURT 3
alone, while others are in “consolidated proceedings” with their fami-
lies. The immigration system, and the Biden administration, has failed
both. Many of these children proceeded without counsel, and a huge
number of children have been ordered removed for failure to appear.
We explain why these two policies—the imposition of in absentia
removal orders against unrepresented children and the failure to
provide counsel—are unlawful, and we provide recommendations
for how the Biden administration can remedy this crisis.
. . . .
It should be obvious that immigration court proceedings are far too
complex for children to navigate without legal representation. As
Secretary Mayorkas acknowledged earlier this year, “a nine-year-old
child cannot navigate the immigration system.”44 Attorneys General
under the Obama administration made similar statements, as had
the government’s own expert in litigation challenging the failure to
provide counsel for children several years ago.45 Prior to that conces-
sion, one supervisory immigration judge was extensively ridiculed
for stating his view that he could teach three- and four-year-olds to
understand immigration law and represent themselves in immi-
gration court.46 Yet, despite the obvious absurdity of that view, the
Biden administration’s immigration courts—like the immigration
courts of all prior administrations—recognize no age below which
children cannot proceed without a lawyer in court.
. . . .
CONCLUSION
Despite taking some strong symbolic and practical steps in its early
days, the Biden administration has failed children in immigration
court under its watch. In the last three years, Immigration Judges
have issued removal orders against tens of thousands of children in
violation of basic due process principles. Though the administration
has not enforced most of those removal orders, nothing will stop a
future administration from doing so without ever providing those
children a fair day in court.
But there is time to reverse course. We urge the administration to
adopt the concrete recommendations laid out in this paper: prohibit
the issuance of in absentia removal orders against unrepresented
children; terminate the Dedicated Docket; and ensure legal represen-
tation for all children in removal proceedings. To do so would make
real the Biden administration’s promise of a fair and humane immi-
gration system for children.
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Read the complete report at the above link.
This should be a fixable problem! Instead, Congress and the Administration are fixated on making things worse for children and other legal asylum seekers at the border. What’s happening in the Senate now is neither a “negotiation” nor does it have much to do with “national security.”
It’s mostly about bullying the most vulnerable while diverting attention from the failure of all three branches of Government to address human migration and human rights in an rational, lawful, and constructive manner.
Artificially inflating and manipulating “in absentia” order statistics has been a long-time practice of EOIR under Administrations of both parties. The DOJ and EOIR use their own unfair procedures to paint a false picture of individuals evading the system.
In reality, statistics show that the overwhelming majority of those able to secure representation and therefore understand the “system” want fair merits decisions on their asylum applications.
But, as many who, unlike Garland and his minions, have actually practiced in the dysfunctional Immigration Courts know, getting a timely merits hearing on meritorious, already-prepared cases can be “mission impossible” in a system wedded to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and lacking in dynamic due-process-focused expert leadership!
Additionally, “notice” problems at EOIR are endemic — now reaching the Supremes for the third time (after being blown out on the first two trips) in a “supreme dereliction of duty” by Garland’s DOJ. Haphazard notice procedures and endless delays are also major contributors to the abuse of children in Immigraton Court.
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
12-18-23