In Court, Immigrant Children Are Moved to Head of Line

New York Times: 

By Kirk Semple

August 14, 2014

In Court, Immigrant Children Are Moved to Head of Line 

Yovany’s first opportunity to face the United States justice system came late on Thursday morning, more than a month after his journey from Guatemala ended in an American detention center near the Southwest border.

Alone, the 16-year-old entered an immigration courtroom on Broadway in Lower Manhattan and braced for mercilessness. Instead, he met Judge F. James Loprest Jr.

“Do you have a lawyer?” the judge asked, his tone soft, his cadence gentle. He patiently explained that the nation’s immigration laws were complicated and encouraged the boy to get a lawyer to explore possible relief from deportation.

“I’m supposed to act as a referee,” Judge Loprest continued. “But I’m happy to give you the time that you need.”

Yovany was among 55 children who have come before the judge this week as part of a new accelerated court process, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s strategy to deal with the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America.

Under the new procedures, the Justice Department is moving children who recently arrived to the head of the line to see immigration judges, possibly leading to deportation within months rather than years, the usual time frame amid the tremendous backlogs in the immigration court system. Quicker deportations, some officials have said, might send a strong message to the countries where the children are coming from and help to deter others from migrating illegally.

But immigrants’ advocates and service providers have been concerned that the accelerated process — known more formally as “priority dockets” and informally as “surge dockets” or “rocket dockets” — would somehow compromise due process.

They worried that the Obama administration’s urgency to deport the new arrivals would make it much more difficult for children to find affordable, competent legal help. They feared that in the rush, some children might not receive notices of court hearings, leading to judgments in absentia and guaranteed deportations.

While some of those fears have been realized around the country, the experience in New York this week, service providers said, has been remarkably smooth.

On Wednesday, the first day of the priority dockets, 29 of 32 children appeared for initial hearings — and one of those who failed to appear had never been notified, legal service providers said. On Thursday, 26 of 27 showed up.

Judge Loprest set continuances for nearly all of the children in October and November.

“It’s working seamlessly,” said Jojo Annobil, chief of the immigration law unit at the Legal Aid Society, who was helping to coordinate a small brigade of representatives from an array of different service providers and law firms.

Before the surge of unaccompanied minors became a crisis for the Obama administration, the immigration courts in New York, among the nation’s busiest, held four special juvenile dockets every month for children facing deportation. In coordination with court officials, a coalition of groups — including the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Catholic Charities Community Services, Legal Aid, Safe Passage Project and the Door — provided screening and free legal representation to the children.

In July, Justice Department officials announced their plan to reshuffle priorities and to put unaccompanied minors, as well as families with children, first in line to see immigration judges.

Immigrants’ advocates in New York learned only at the end of July that the Justice Department had scheduled the new juvenile dockets starting this week. The groups, already overstretched, rushed to develop a plan of action.

The special dockets unfolded this week on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, a hulking federal office building near City Hall. The children, most accompanied by relatives, began to gather in the hallway outside Courtroom 31 by 8 a.m., an hour before the hearings were to begin.

Representatives from the nonprofit groups greeted them. “I know this can be confusing,” Lenni Benson, director of Safe Passage, said on Wednesday.

On both days, Elvis Garcia Callejas, a representative from Catholic Charities, used a white board to present the families with a primer, in Spanish, on how the court works and on possible avenues of relief they might pursue to avoid a deportation order.

Most of the defendants appeared to be teenagers, although there were children as young as 4. Two young sisters wore matching striped dresses.

“The judge is not going to rule today,” Mr. Garcia Callejas clarified.

Then, those children without lawyers were invited into a large hearing room down the hall to be interviewed by volunteer attorneys. The children with lawyers were crowded with their families onto the few wooden benches in the gallery of Courtroom 31 and awaited their hearings.

Minutes later, Judge Loprest bounded in. “Good morning, everybody,” he exclaimed, shedding his black judicial robe to reveal a blue tie and his shirt sleeves rolled up. “How’s everybody today?” Casually introducing himself as “James Loprest,” he said, “I want to thank you for being here.”

He was friendly and avuncular. He invited questions from the defendants. “I don’t want anything to be a mystery to anybody,” he said.

Justice Department officials said they had a mandate to ensure that children went before an immigration judge within 21 days of being placed in deportation proceedings. They plan to hold the special dockets as often as necessary to reach that goal.

But Mr. Annobil said the service providers that have customarily worked on juvenile dockets have agreed on a schedule to ensure that there will be sufficient help to staff the screenings through the end of the month.

The next challenge, he said, is to figure out how to provide legal representation for every child who needs it.

Judge Loprest gave Yovany, who now lives with a cousin in Babylon, Long Island, more than three months to find a lawyer. “Can I ask you to come back on Nov. 19?” the judge inquired. The boy nodded.

In the hallway, Yovany smiled, visibly relieved. He held a list of nonprofit organizations that might be able to provide him with legal help.

The morning’s experience, he said, had not been what he had expected.

“It’s not like everyone says it is — they say the court is very strict,” he said. “It’s much calmer.”

Another Guatemalan defendant, Melissa, 17, also seemed buoyant after her hearing. She left her home in Guatemala in June but was detained at the Texas border two weeks later, eventually being released to her father, Edwin, last month. Her brother, who had also been detained, arrived a week later.

“The judge was a very understandable guy,” said Edwin, a construction worker who lives with his children in Nyack, N.Y. “He gave us another chance.”

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com