Data show that tens of thousands of children have been ordered deported, most without legal representation or a fair day in court

CONTACT

Hayley Burgess, UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, burgess@law.ucla.edu

Los Angeles, CA – A damning new report released today by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law finds that the Biden administration has failed children in immigration court under its watch. Despite taking important steps in its early days, the report details how the administration's policies have led to grave injustices for children facing immigration court proceedings in the United States, and resulted in tens of thousands of children ordered deported, most without legal representation or a fair day in court. 

Children make up a significant number of those facing removal proceedings. In the first five months of Fiscal Year 2022, almost one third of all new cases in immigration court involved children, including tens of thousands of children under the age of five.  Some of these children are “unaccompanied” because they arrived alone. Others are in proceedings with their families, including on a much-criticized fast-track “Dedicated Docket” for families seeking asylum. 

“While the administration should be lauded for its efforts to provide children and families access to the court system, its failure to ensure legal representation has produced a massive due process crisis,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. “It should be obvious that immigration court proceedings are far too complex for children to navigate without legal representation, especially when the consequences are so dire. The Biden administration must take swift action to ensure legal representation for all children in immigration court.”

Under the Biden administration (as in past administrations), children are ordered to appear in immigration court against trained government prosecutors, even if they have no lawyer to represent them. This is true despite the fact that the legal avenues most often available for children to remain safely in the United States - asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status - are among the most complex in the immigration system. And, if children fail to appear, they are ordered removed in absentia, even if they have no control over whether they are able to come to court.

“There is no other legal context in which children are held legally responsible for circumstances over which they have no control,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, Faculty Co-Director for the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law. “Yet the Biden administration has punished tens of thousands of children who fail to appear in immigration court by entering deportation orders that will follow them for the rest of their lives. This practice is unlawful, and it must end.”

The report’s key findings include:

• In a five-month period in FY 2022 alone, almost one third of immigration court cases initiated by the Biden administration–more than 80,000 in all–were against children, over 30,000 of whom were under the age of 5, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
• Studies show that unrepresented unaccompanied children are at least five times more likely to be ordered removed than children with access to counsel. 
• By the government’s own account, 44% of unaccompanied children and 51% of families on the Dedicated Docket lack legal representation.
• The vast majority of removal orders entered against children are for failure to appear: Approximately 72% of removal orders against families on the Los Angeles and Boston Dedicated Dockets were issued in absentia, with over 48% against children, many under the age of six. Worse yet, 86% of removal orders issued against unaccompanied children were for failure to appear.
• Immigration courts under the Biden administration ordered more than 13,000 unaccompanied children removed in absentia between Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023.

The report details how the Biden administration’s treatment of children in immigration court is unlawful, and calls on the Biden administration to: prohibit in absentia removal orders against unrepresented children; terminate the Dedicated Docket; and ensure legal representation for all unrepresented children in removal proceedings.

Read the full report: bit.ly/NoFairDay 

Learn more about the LA Dedicated Dockets: bit.ly/3wEExmV 

Learn more about the Boston Dedicated Dockets: bit.ly/3NHk7kD

About UCLA CILP:

Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

Follow CILP on Twitter (@UCLA_CILP) Instagram (@UCLA_CILP), or sign up for additional news at bit.ly/CILPnews.