Young Center Files Amicus Brief in Support of Lawsuit to Restore Legal Services for Immigrant Children
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Last Thursday, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the law firm of Moeel Lah Fakhoury LLP filed an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to oppose the Trump Administration's decision to end funding for legal representation services for unaccompanied immigrant children and to highlight the profound harm that termination of legal services will have on the safety and well-being of children. The filing comes a week after a federal judge in California issued a temporary order for the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to 26,000 children.
In this brief, the Young Center informs the Court that:
The loss of these services is detrimental to children’s safety and well-being. Young Center Child Advocates have worked closely and regularly with children’s attorneys—the vast majority of whom are government-funded— and have seen firsthand the vital role that children’s attorneys play in promoting children’s safety, health, well-being, and rights.
Children have been and will continue to be harmed by the termination of government-funded legal representation. In one court, Young Center Child Advocates observed a 14-year-old girl break down in tears in the court’s lobby when she was told that she would not have a lawyer and would need to stand up in court all alone.
Denying children access to legal representation, when the majority of children cannot afford to retain counsel, and when demand far exceeds pro bono representation capacity, causes significant harm to children.
"The deck is already stacked against children in the immigration system, particularly given how extremely complicated immigration law is and how the system fails to treat immigrant children as children,” said Jane Liu, Director of Policy and Litigation for the Young Center. “In filing this amicus brief, we are stating for the record that we will not stand by as the Trump Administration’s deliberate, cruel, and anti-immigrant policies target and endanger children. Every child in immigration proceedings should have an attorney in their corner to advocate for their rights and to help ensure that they have a fair opportunity to seek protection in the U.S. To say otherwise is a complete disregard for the safety, well-being, and rights of children.”
The brief provides personal stories from impacted immigrant children like, Nicolas, who are already experiencing the repercussions in immigration court due to the loss of legal representation. In early April, right before his court hearing, Nicolas was transferred to another program, causing him to miss the court hearing. Due to the interruptions and confusion caused by the loss of funding for legal representation, an important ‘Change of Venue’ form had not been filed, and a legal service provider did not appear on the case. Luckily, an attorney with a legal service provider eventually appeared at the hearing as an unfunded friend of the court and explained Nicolas’ inability to appear in court due to his transfer. But if the attorney had not stepped up, and if no Child Advocate had been present to make a recommendation regarding a continuance, the court could have issued an order of removal.
“In a world where basic legal protections for immigrants have been abandoned, ending essential legal services for unaccompanied immigrant children, who will now be thrown into court proceedings completely alone, makes a mockery of the term 'justice’, said Gladis Molina Alt, Executive Director for the Young Center. “No proceeding is fair when a child is unrepresented.”
Other advocacy organizations and groups who filed amicus (friend-of-the-court) briefs, include: a group of former immigration court judges and former members of the Board of Immigration Appeals; a group of former officials of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Center for Youth Law; Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law; and the UC Davis School of Law Immigration Clinic.
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The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is a non-profit organization that protects and advances the rights and best interests of immigrant children and advocates for an immigration system that treats children as children first.