CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: Vicious statist insanity continues: Young and Alone, Facing Court, Tears and Deportation  Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:57 pm | |
| The judge called his next case, scanning the courtroom.
The immigrant who was facing deportation rose to his feet, in a clean T-shirt and khaki pants several sizes too large, with his name — JUAN — printed on a tag around his neck.
But the judge could not see him. Juan’s head did not rise above the court’s wooden benches.
Juan David Gonzalez was 6 years old. He was in the court, which would decide whether to expel him from the country, without a parent — and also without a lawyer.
Immigration courts in this South Texas border town and across the country are confronting an unexpected surge of children, some of them barely school age, who traveled here without parents and were caught as they tried to cross illegally into the United States.
The young people, mostly from Mexico and Central America, ride to the border on the roofs of freight trains or the backs of buses. They cross the Rio Grande on inner tubes, or hike for days through extremes of heat and chill in Arizona deserts. The smallest children, like Juan, are most often brought by smugglers.
The youths pose troubling difficulties for American immigration courts. Unlike in criminal or family courts, in immigration court there is no right to a lawyer paid by the government for people who cannot afford one. And immigration law contains few protections specifically for minors. So even a child as young as Juan has to go before an immigration judge — confronting a prosecutor and trying to fight deportation — without the help of a lawyer, if one is not privately provided.
So far this year, more than 11,000 unaccompanied minors have been placed in deportation proceedings, nearly double last year’s numbers.
Young migrants say they are fleeing sharply escalating criminal violence in their home countries. Federal agencies have scrambled to muster adequate detention facilities, while legal groups try to find lawyers to represent them. Judges, for their part, have struggled to offer fair hearings to penniless youths who speak little English and often do not even understand why they are in court.
The influx has heightened concerns that young people without legal help may not be able to obtain even the most basic justice.
“It is almost impossible for children to receive relief in immigration court on their own,” said Meredith Linsky, the director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, known as ProBAR, a nonprofit organization that defends young migrants in the region. “The reality is they cannot comprehend the system and what is being asked of them.”
Juan David Gonzalez was just another illegal border crosser on Judge Howard E. Achtsam’s docket one recent day. Juan was guided to the front of the courtroom by a social worker so that the judge could see him. Like any adult, Juan was facing charges of entering the United States without authorization, punishable by removal.
Speaking through an interpreter, Judge Achtsam delicately asked the boy his name and age. After the social worker’s nudge, Juan declared them loudly. She informed the court of plans by a federal child welfare agency to send Juan to be reunited with his parents, who were illegal immigrants living in another state.
Judge Achtsam postponed Juan’s proceedings, but he warned the boy and other minors in the courtroom.
“If you do not have a lawyer,” the judge said, “you need to be ready to speak for yourselves at your next hearing.”
Juan left holding the social worker’s hand, grinning proudly when she told him he had done well. But his case was just beginning. Most likely it would end with a final order for his deportation.
A Risk Worth Taking
The rush of young illegal border crossers began last fall but picked up speed this year, according to official figures. From October through July, the authorities detained 21,842 unaccompanied minors, most at the Southwest border, a 48 percent increase over a year earlier.
Some left their parents behind at home. Many came yearning to reunite with parents who have long been living here illegally.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/us/more-young-illegal-immigrants-face-deportation.html?ref=us |
|
