Page 41 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

try to expand the resources at the court .38 In some cities, law school clinics mobilized to provide information tables . In California, the state legislature responded with unprecedented funds to support counsel for unrepresented children .39 The City Councils of both San Francisco and New York City gave new funding to groups trying to meet the need . Private foundations also stepped forward in partnership with public funds to try to help the immigrant youth facing removal .40
The immigration judges request that the ORR sponsor41 or a parent is present with the child at the hearing . The median age of the children in Immigration Court is approximately fourteen years old, but even infants have been placed in removal hearings . The immigration judges usually make an inquiry about where the child is living and whether he is attending school .42 If the young person is working and not attending school, the judges usually encourage the child to find a general educational development (GED) or other educational program, including English as a secondlanguage(ESL)programs .43 Attimes,childrenexplaintotheimmigrationjudgethatthey have had difficulty enrolling in the public schools for a variety of reasons, including not having a legal guardian residing in the school district; the school district is asking for records from abroad; or the child and his or her sponsor are unable to overcome the bureaucratic barriers some school districts raise .
If the child is represented, the attorney can often help the child find a school and will help the child document school attendance . Further, the child’s attorney may be able to guide the child to plead to the allegations in the Notice to Appear, the charging document in immigration court, and to identify the forms of relief the child will be seeking . In those cases, if the child is in school, the immigration judge is usually willing to waive the appearance of the child at further immigration hearings as long as counsel attends in order to avoid further school absences and stress for the
38 Kirk Semple, Advocates Scramble As New York Accelerates Child Deportation Cases, n.y. Times, June 5, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/nyregion/advocates-scramble-as-new-york-accelerates-child-deportation- cases.html.
39 2014 Cal. Legis. Serv. Ch. 685 (S.B. 873), available at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient. xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB873. See Patrick McGreevy & Phil Willon, Gov. Brown Signs Bills Aiding Immigrant Children, Troubled Students, l.a. Times, Sept. 27, 2014, http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-brown-bills- 20140928-story.html#page=1.
40 For more information, see https://www.robinhood.org/news/nyc-council-speaker-melissa-mark-viverito-robin-hood- foundation-and-new-york-community-trust. The New York City funding provides support for approximately 880 children who are residents of the City and covers the costs of screening for the other children who reside in other parts of New York. Approximately fifty percent of the children reside in Long Island. The Long Island health and Welfare Council and the New York Secretary of State’s Office for New Americans provided some limited funding to help support access to counsel for Long Island children. The need outstrips the resources of these grants. Safe Passage Project receives calls weekly from youth who have been unable to afford private counsel and have been turned away from other nonprofits due to lack of capacity.
41 The “ORR Sponsor” is the adult to whom the child is released from federal custody.
42 In 1982 the Supreme Court ruled in Plyer v. Doe that children have the right to attend public school regardless of their immigration status. Plyler v. Doe, 457 u.S. 202, 230 (1982). Nevertheless, many local school districts are neither prepared nor welcoming of recent immigrant children. NYCLU Survey: NY School Districts Illegally Denying Education to Immigrant Children, n.y. ciV. liberTies union (Oct. 30, 2014), http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-survey- ny-school-districts-illegally-denying-education-immigrant-children.
43 Children in removal proceedings do not automatically receive work authorization so any work may be in violation of both federal immigration laws and state labor laws that protect children depending on the nature and duration of the work. We have many times heard the children explain to the court that they have to work to support themselves and to “pay rent.” Interview notes on file with authors. For children who later qualify for asylum or SIJS, the unauthorized work is not a barrier to their eligibility for adjustment of status. 8 u.S.C. § 1255(c)(2). Children who file for asylum and are over the age of eighteen may seek a work authorization document once the child’s application has been pending more than 180 days at the Asylum Office or EOIR. exec. office for immigraTion reView, u.s. ciTizenshiP and immigraTion serVices, The 180-day asylum ead clock noTice, available at https://www.uscis.gov/sites/ default/files/uSCIS/humanitarian/Refugees%20%26%20Asylum/Asylum/Asylum_Clock_Joint_Notice.pdf.
Specific Areas for Reform: Immigration
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