The children were sitting on wooden benches bouncing their legs, shaking hands, and looking anxiously around the bright court.
“We’re on record,” Immigration Judge Audra R. Behne whispered Tuesday. Their eyes stared.
A teenage girl in a shiny shirt smiles at her boyfriend. A 14-year-old boy in a denim jacket sits next to his aunt, whose teenage daughter texts next to her. Another teenage girl with a heart sitting next to her mom.
They are dozens of children, and their deportation cases are held every month in Behne at the West Los Angeles Immigration Court. When the Trump administration deprives legal funds for those who have no parents or legal custodians across the border, many face new reality.
When they face a complex legal system and attempt to expel their government, children will find fewer free lawyers available and are increasingly likely to face deportation.
“These kids often don’t know what’s going on, and without lawyers, they’re doomed to fail.
Children who deportement lawsuits (some still infants) are not entitled to court-appointed attorneys, although the United States recognizes the rights of attorneys. Ensuring that one person may mean the difference between staying and relocating to a country where parents are persecuted, abused or abandoned.
Most children who arrive in court do not speak English and do not know how to fill out forms or file a case when competing with a government lawyer.
“I’ve represented unaccompanied children for 27 years,” Cooper said. “People are always shocked to see the way children navigate the maze legal system alone.”
Itzel’s Uncle Johnny had no money to pay for immigration attorneys, who came to the United States illegally two years ago. The Trump administration said it would not renew the contract for legal service providers who illegally represent about 26,000 children in the country.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Last week, a 16-year-old girl named Itzel, with a long ponytail and bright eyes. She was wearing a Bell High School sweatshirt.
She is part of the unaccompanied wave of children reaching its peak in fiscal 2022.
Itzel’s mom is a drug addict. Her father left when he was a child. The cartel penetrated her school in northern Mexico. She fled with her 14-year-old relative after her cousin was killed at a party. Uncle Johnnie said death was a creepy warning from Cartel that he didn’t want to be identified because he was worried about his life.
When Itzel crossed the border, she was detained and placed in the shelter for two weeks before being released to her aunt and uncle.
“It’s not bad,” she said. “They give you $10 a week to buy things.”
Although advocates say Itzel may have legal remedies, she can’t afford it without a lawyer to help her. She found the system confusing and thought no one in it wanted to help her.
While Itzel waited outside the court, her aunt Laura appeared on behalf of Judge Bain. Laura is one of more than a dozen family members who sit with the kid behind the lawyer’s desk without a lawyer.
As a Spanish interpreter interpreter, a homeland security lawyer was welcomed at the Via Audio Web Conference. Children after children or their relatives told Bourne that they did not have a lawyer. Many people have been trying to find a month.
Bain continued the case and found a lawyer for the whole family. But their chances are slim, advocates say. Bain told Laura and the others who filled the court in court that day that if they didn’t have a lawyer, they might have to conduct the case themselves—a confusing reality for many.
“Do you understand?” Behne asked the children one by one when he set a new hearing date for them in court that day. “Do you have any questions?”
The most disgusting. But some kids accepted the question as an invitation.
A teenage boy named Oscar explained that he had no resources to pay the lawyer. He wants to find a job. The great aunt sitting next to him said that his parents abandoned him and no one took care of him.
The judge often smiled at the children, sometimes asking them how they were doing, and she explained to the two people she did not give her work permit.
“I highly recommend you go to the immigration desk,” she said. “They are open within 15 minutes and you can ask all of these questions.”
The family wandered around, looking for a service desk. But advocates fear that it may also be eliminated under the government.
As seen last week, the U.S. Immigration Court in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
As of last year, there were about 33,000 unaccompanied minor cases in the U.S. immigration court. Nonprofit legal services are overwhelmingly poor or have no money, and with federal funds cut, some attorneys are preparing to shrink or end services altogether.
“There is such a huge demand. There are not enough pro bono lawyers to move around,” said Jenny Viegas, a community education manager for the Esperanza Immigration Rights Program in Los Angeles, which provides free legal services to children in the West Los Angeles Immigration Court near Los Angeles International.
Vegas sat behind a small portable table in the hallway near the court hall, and the group advised minors on Tuesday and provided directions ahead of time for those who appeared for the first time. The boy and his aunt were waiting for someone to help them.
She said the process was “really scary” for many people seeking help.
“For us, English is hard to understand the court system,” she said. “But imagine what it feels like to be a 14-year-old or 12-year-old.”
Last month, the program served more than 300 children and worked with immigration judges in courts in Los Angeles and Orange County to relocate cases through the following system.
Advocates fear that the welcome program, funded by another federal grant, could be at risk in the government’s sudden cessation and three other federally funded programs, including lawyers and information desks for children detaining. The program will be restored soon after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on the government’s freeze of federal grants.
The U.S. Immigration Court is located in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The program provides basic information including visa children often qualifying and a package that contains a list of attorneys who hear cases for free or free of charge.
Itzel’s uncle browsed the list of attorneys in the package, but everyone refused to accept the case, saying that with a full lineup they didn’t have time to accept it. He said hiring a private lawyer was too expensive. He tried to save one for his wife, but the man just took the money and disappeared. In retrospect, Johnny said he wasn’t even a lawyer.
Johnny barely scratched. He worked as a truck driver and paid $2,200 a month to the cartels so they wouldn’t kill relatives who were still in Mexico. The family lives in the garage and struggles to pay for food.
“All I have is to go find them,” he said.
Despite the uncertainty, Itzel feels good about her new life.
“I’m learning English,” she said with a smile. Asked about her feelings about the hearing, she said “Siento Tranquilo,” Not annoying.
She saw another boy walking into the court from Bell High School. He also has no lawyer.
Statistics show that there is no representative direct decline in relief rates. But their situation is not uncommon.
About 56% of children with cases have legal representation, a number that has dropped from previous years, and advocates fear will promise if funds are not passed.
Earlier this month, the government concluded a contract that funded approximately 26,000 children (about 4,700 in California) as well as contracts for basic legal services. The contract provides funds for minors who cross the border alone or who do not have legal custodians.
“If this decision exists and these legal services are impoverished, the future is bleak,” said Marion Donovan-Kaloust, director of legal services at the Immigration Defenders Law Center. “Without attorneys, we would see many children who escaped despair, who are eligible for legal means in the United States, unnecessarily deported.”
The center and other legal service providers sued the government in the northern California region, believing the program ended without reason and violated federal laws enacted to protect children from trafficking.
“These actions will also create chaos throughout the immigration legal system and are particularly harmful because they are at a time when the government resumes speeding up the trial of cases for unaccompanied children to be removed from office,” the lawyer said in a lawsuit.
As we all know, immigration courts are bottled in bottles, with more than 3 million cases pending trial.
Meanwhile, lawyers and children represent company as they try to figure out what they will next. Families like Itzel’s are imagining what the world would look like if it was deported.
“I joked with her that she was going back to Mexico,” Johnny said. “She started crying. ‘I don’t want to go back there.’ She likes to go to school now.”
