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| Caribbean-Latin America | |
| Court for Illegal Kids is no Picnic (git yer hankie!) | |
| 2014-07-20 | |
| Many like José came on their own or paid a smuggler. Their journeys often involved dashes through gang-controlled Honduran neighborhoods, cramped bus rides along Mexican roads or a trip of terror atop a freight train. Now, after being apprehended, these young people have ended up in court to face their biggest test -- one that can determine whether they stay in the U.S. What happens in Baird's courtroom lies at the heart of a heated debate over how the U.S. government should handle the recent surge of juvenile migrants. The latest order from Obama's administration: Prioritize and speed up hearings on removal of these unaccompanied minors, whose apprehensions total 57,000 so far this fiscal year. The sooner they get to vote (D), the better! Immigration courts have a record backlog of 375,500 cases -- both juveniles and adults from all countries, said Juan Osuna, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the U.S. Department of Justice. The numbers have doubled since 2008. Lessee, what else happened in 2008 that might have caused the doubling of illegal immigration? Texas immigration courts are among the nation's busiest. Since 2005, Texas judges have presided over a quarter of the nation's deportation cases involving juveniles, according to data analyzed by a national research center. Texas immigration courts are also among the nation's toughest. In Texas, two-thirds of immigrants, including adults and juveniles, are ordered deported, according to TRAC. The national average is about 50 percent; in California, it's almost 39 percent. Doesn't Caliphornia have enough Democratic voters yet? But a prominent federal judge warned it would be a mistake to rush minors through immigration court. "Those are the cases that take longer. You have to be more solicitous of the person and allow the person to find an attorney. They are particularly vulnerable individuals," the judge said. "You have to spend more time to make sure they understand the procedures and the rights. How do you do that with frightened children?" About once a week, the judge presides over the juvenile immigration docket in Dallas. "All of you are here today because the government wants to remove you from the country," he tells the juveniles one recent morning. He reads them their rights. It is a short conversation. You can have legal representation if you want, the judge tells them, but you don't have the right to a free lawyer. An interpreter repeats the message in Spanish. The unaccompanied minors in the Dallas courtroom are all from Central America -- El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras -- where violence, poverty and false beliefs that U.S. authorities treat minors leniently have fueled the crisis at the border. Nobody plans on getting caught. They all hope to get to a sanctuary city. Or their aunt or cousin. Across the nation's immigration courts, children show up without lawyers more than half the time, which makes a huge difference. In about half of the cases in which juveniles have an attorney, the court has allowed them to stay in the U.S., according to the data. In cases in which juveniles did not have a lawyer, 9 out of 10 were ordered deported. Where in the world do illegal immigrant kids find the cash for an attorney? For children from Central America, a deportation order can mean returning to violence or even death in their birth country, said a Dallas immigration attorney. Recently, he represented a teen from El Salvador applying for a special immigrant juvenile status. The boy's father abandoned him a few months after his birth, which made the boy more vulnerable to gangs. Especially when he was only a few months old. He left home to live with an aunt in Texas. "Like so many others like him, he was sent north because he was either going to become predator or prey," the attorney said.
Because there are more attorneys than work. "The situation [in El Salvador] is so difficult," she said in Spanish. "Imagine kids only 12 smoking drugs and getting in gangs. The mothers send their kids here because they fear for the lives of their sons. What are the kids in Detroit and Chicago supposed to do? New York? Newark? L.A.? Between votes, I mean. | |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #3 I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that these deportation hearings should be fairly quick: Judge: Do you have the proper documentation to be in this country? Child: No, su senoria. Judge: You are deported. Bailiff, place him on the next bus. Next case. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2014-07-20 13:00 |
| #2 Issue outstanding warrants for child abandonment and abuse so if their family tries to claim 'reunification' nail them. If it's good enough for the yankees, its good enough for everyone else. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-07-20 12:05 |
| #1 The latest order from ObamaÂ’s administration: Prioritize and speed up hearings on removal of these unaccompanied minors, whose apprehensions total 57,000 so far this fiscal year. The sooner they get to vote (D), the better! And curious how I've seen more than a few articles this last year about people who want to lower the voting age... Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2014-07-20 12:03 |