Los Angeles Times
By Hector Becerra
July 9, 2014
On
a June morning last year, Alex Alvarez left his home in the lush
Salvadoran region of Morazan to make the now-familiar journey of tens of
thousands of other young immigrants
from Central America.
There
was no father or mother to send him off with a blessing, nor any
waiting for him at his destination in the United States. The only
blessing that mattered now would
come from an immigration judge in the boxy, orange-brick courthouse
where the now-18-year-old sat one morning last week — his first court
hearing since arriving more than a year ago.
------------
FOR THE RECORD
Immigration
court: In the July 10 Section A, an article about backlogs in
immigration court stated that Alex Alvarez’s court hearing last week was
his first since arriving
in the U.S. more than a year ago. He departed his native El Salvador
more than a year ago but did not arrive in the U.S. until August.
------------
Also
on the docket were 12 Honduran, two Guatemalan and eight Salvadoran
children who had already been released from detention. A smaller group
of children was due to
appear in the afternoon. Those boys and girls, staying at a Baptist
shelter, showed up smartly dressed, the boys in dress shirts and ties.
"I
told him the important thing for him is to keep studying," said
Alvarez's brother-in-law Mario Olmos, 37, who drove him to court that
day. "If you don't study, the
judges don't see the point of you staying in this country."
He
hoped, Olmos said, that Alvarez wouldn't be in the immigration court
system as long as he himself has: three years and counting.
On
Wednesday, Justice Department officials announced plans to speed up
court proceedings for unaccompanied youths and families, whose
accelerated influx across the Southwest
border in recent months threatens to paralyze a court system already
hampered by congestion and delay.
The
new policy will assign a greater proportion of the nation's 243
immigration judges to hear juvenile cases, either at the border or by
video, and appoint new temporary
judges to help handle a surge of at least 57,000 unaccompanied minors
into the U.S., most of them from Central America, since Oct.1.
But
a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of public interest groups
could inject further delays into the system, calling for juvenile
immigrants to be guaranteed legal
representation before their deportation cases can proceed in
immigration court.
The
Obama administration has sought to hammer home a message that children
who are crossing the border illegally will be sent back.
But
the number of cases already pending in the nation's 59 immigration
courts — a caseload that has more than doubled in the last 15 years —
and a long history of delays
that can stretch as long as five years raise questions about whether
federal officials will be able to make good on their pledge to speedily
deport new immigrants not eligible to remain in the U.S.
The
average case takes 578 days to make its way through the immigration
courts, with 366,758 cases currently pending, according to federal court
records compiled by Syracuse
University.
A
law signed by President Bush in 2008 makes it difficult to repatriate
unaccompanied minors to Central America without letting them appear
before an immigration judge.
But
the current court system involves "processes layered upon processes
layered upon processes," said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of
Raices, a nonprofit group that
provides free or low-cost services for child immigrants, families and
refugees.
Once
in court, many things can happen that can drag cases out for months or
longer. A day in immigration court in San Antonio last week provided
just one example of how
this can happen.
There
were 32 cases on the docket in the courtroom of Judge Anibal D.
Martinez. But as the morning progressed, it became apparent that many of
the children and their lawyers
were not showing up. "Every other kid is MIA," immigration attorney
Linda Brandmiller whispered from a bench at the back of the small
courtroom.
Brandmiller
said a legal organization had misinterpreted a message from the court
and sent out an email that caused confusion, leading attorneys and their
clients to believe
that many of the cases would not be heard that day.
Most
of the hearings for children that did arrive resulted in the scheduling
of additional hearings, usually several months away. Martinez warned
the children, most of
whom listened to the proceedings on headsets through a translator, that
he might have to order their removal from the country if they were
absent.
Just
before 9 a.m., Cristian, a 17-year-old from El Salvador with spiky hair
and a checkered shirt, sat before the judge. His legal representative
said the teen had been
a victim of human traffickers and needed to have his case proceed on a
confidential basis. The judge set a hearing for late October and waived
the requirement that Cristian be present.
Soon,
Alvarez — wearing a light blue polo shirt, black jeans and white
leather shoes — was sitting before the judge, with legal representative
David Walding at his side.
Alvarez said he left a verdant region of El Salvador that was the scene
of the 1981 "El Mozote" massacre, in which the Salvadoran army killed
more than 800 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign. His father died
when he was about 5 years old, he said, and
his mother when he was about 12, both from illness. Alvarez said he
left as a result of pressure from gangs that had forced other boys to
join.
He
crossed the border last August, and after a brief stay at a warehouse
got caught while walking with a group of immigrants near McAllen, Texas.
Days later he was flown
to a detention facility in Chicago, though his siblings in the U.S.
were in Austin, Texas. Walding said that required him to apply for a
change of court venue, which took a couple of months.
Another
delay was introduced when Walding applied in March for Special
Immigrant Juvenile, or SIJ, status, based on his client having been an
orphan and essentially abandoned.
SIJ status can help pave the way to permanent residency, but a state
court would have to make the finding.
Martinez set Alvarez's next hearing for Oct. 29, but excused him from appearing in court then so he could go to school.
The
night before the court hearing, about 50 volunteers gathered at a legal
justice center for a meeting run by Raices, the immigrant service
group, which has been holding
screenings of children at San Antonio's Lackland Air Force Base, where
more than 1,000 young immigrants at a time have been held in a hastily
organized detention center. Ryan, the organization's director, said the
screenings were key to linking immigrants
with free attorneys and determining what kind of relief the minors
might qualify for.
He told the gathered that they should be prepared to hear shocking things, and asked them to mute their reactions.
"You
cannot display your own shock. You can't really display your own
horror," Ryan said. "You're going to make the kid think they said
something wrong because they upset
you."
The
next day, sitting in the back of the courtroom, Ryan said there was a
pieced-together, almost improvised quality about the legal
representation the child immigrants
were getting. Volunteer lawyers from organizations such as Raices are
important, but they are a "poor replacement for a public defender
model," he said.
As
court came back into session at about 1 p.m. and Judge Martinez took
his seat, a handful of protesters waved signs — one reading "No
deportation without legal representation"
— in the muggy heat outside the building.
There
would be no deportation orders because of the confusion caused by the
email, Martinez said. He told one 17-year-old Guatemalan boy seeking
asylum that he knew he
took "a long trip for a better life" and advised him that if he were
lucky enough to win legal residency, it could all unravel if he
committed a crime.
He
urged him to "get an education while here and make the most of your
life," reminding him that American taxpayers were paying for that.
The
last hearing was for a curly, red-haired 17-year-old Honduran boy whose
SIJ status had been previously approved. His attorney successfully
petitioned to close the
teenager's court case — he was clear to remain in the U.S. and apply
for lawful permanent residence.
Martinez reminded him that all could be lost if he broke the law. "Good luck to you, sir," the judge said.
Later
that day, Alvarez got a message back in Austin. On the very day of his
first court hearing, his own SIJ application had been approved.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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