The children sat on wooden benches bouncing their legs, shaking their hands and looking forward to the brilliantly lit audience.
“We are in the case,” said immigration judge Audra R. Behne in the microphone on Tuesday. Their eyes looked at.
A teenager in a brilliant shirt smiles at her boyfriend. A 14 -year -old boy in a denim jacket was sitting next to her aunt, whose teenage girl sent sms next to her. Another teenager with a heart sporting her sweatshirt leaned against her mother when they were sitting in the gallery.
They are among the dozens of children whose deportation affairs are presented in Behne at the West Los Angeles Immigration short each month. Many are faced with a new reality when the Trump administration has removed legal funding from those who crossed the unreventhed border or legal guardian.
As they face a complex legal system and a government that seeks to expel them, children will find fewer pro bono lawyers available and face an increasing probability of expulsion.
“These children often have no idea what is going on, and without a lawyer, they are condemned,” said Holly S. Cooper, who was part of the first program of federal pilot to represent the children of the immigration court more than two decades ago.
Children in the expulsion procedure – some infants still have the right to a lawyer appointed by the court, although the United States recognizes the right to a lawyer. Securing can make the difference between the stay and the withdrawal in a country where they were persecuted, mistreated or abandoned by their parents.
Most children who arrive in the courtroom do not speak English, do not know how to fill out forms or present a case when they face government lawyers.
“I have been unaccompanied for 27 years,” said Cooper. “And people are always shocked to see what it looks like for children to navigate by themselves in a labyrinthine legal system.”
Itzel, whose uncle Johnnie does not have the money to pay an immigration lawyer, came to the United States illegally two years ago. The Trump administration said it will not renew contracts for legal services providers who illegally represent around 26,000 children in the country.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
A 16-year-old girl named Itzel, with a long ponytail and shiny eyes, sat outside the doors of the courtroom last week looking at her cousin for the little one while she was waiting for the judge to call her case. She wore a High School Bell High School.
It is part of a wave of unaccompanied children who reached a summit during the 2022 fiscal year.
Itzel’s mom is addict. Her father left when she was young. The cartel infiltrated his school in northern Mexico. She fled with parents at 14, after Cousins was horribly killed at a party. Death was a scary warning of the cartel, said Johnnie, an uncle who did not want to be identified because he feared for his life.
When Itzel crossed the border, she was held in detention and placed in a refuge for two weeks before being released to her aunt and uncle.
“It was not so bad,” she said. “They give you $ 10 per week to buy things.”
Although lawyers say Itzel can have legal remedies, she has no lawyer to help him and cannot afford it. She finds the confusing system and thinks nobody wants to help her.
His aunt Laura appeared before judge Behne on his behalf while Iitzel was waiting before the court. Laura was one of the more than a dozen family members who sat with the children behind a lawyer without a lawyer.
A lawyer for the Ministry of Internal Security was radiated during the audio web conference, while a translated Spanish language interpreter. One after the other, the children or their relatives told Behne that they had no lawyer. Many have been trying to find one for months.
Behne continued the case of Itzel, giving family months for months to find advice. But the chances they will be slim, say the defenders. Behne told Laura and others who filled the court that day that if they had no lawyer, they may have to do the case themselves-a confusing reality for many.
“Do you understand?” Behne asked them, one by one, when she set new audience dates for the children of her court that day. “Do you have any questions?”
Most were right. But some children took the question as an invitation.
A dapper adolescent named Oscar explained that he did not have the resources to pay a lawyer. He wanted to find a job. His great aunt, who sat down next to him, signed that his parents had abandoned him and that there was no one to take care of him.
The judge, who often smiles on children and sometimes asked them how they went, explained to the two that she does not give a work permit.
“I strongly encourage you to go to the immigration assistance service,” she said. “They open in 15 minutes and you can ask all these questions.”
The family has moved away, looking for the assistance service. But the defenders fear that this too can be eliminated under the administration.
American immigration court in Los Angeles, as we saw last week.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Since last year, there are approximately 33,000 cases awaiting unaccompanied minors in the American immigration courts. The non -profit legal services that invoice little or no money have been exceeded, and with imminent federal funding discounts, some lawyers are preparing to develop or at an end the services.
“The need is so important. There are not enough pro good lawyers to go around,” said Jenny Viegas, head of community education for the immigrant project for immigrants Esperanza, Los Angeles, who provides free legal services to the children of the West Los Angeles Immigration short near Lax.
Viegas sat behind a small portable office in a corridor near the courtyard of the courtyard, where the group organizes consultations for minors on Tuesday and offers guidance in court for those who appear for the first time. The boy and his aunt waited for someone to help them.
She said that, for many of those who ask for help, the process is “really scary”.
“It is difficult for us to speak English to understand the justice system,” she said. “But imagine what it looks like a 14 -year -old or 12 year old.”
Last month, the program served more than 300 children, working with immigration judges in the courts of Los Angeles and the County of Orange to get business through the system in the background.
Defenders are concerned about the orientation program, funded by another federal subsidy, could be in danger after the administration suddenly interrupted it and three other programs financed by the federal government, in particular child lawyers and an information assistance service. The programs were authorized to resume a short time after a federal judge made a temporary prohibition order on freeze by the administration of federal subsidies.
American immigration court in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The program provides basic information, including visas, children are often eligible and a package with a list of lawyers who take free or free cases.
Itzel’s uncle has traveled the list of lawyers in the package, but all refused to take the case, saying that with a full list, they did not have time to take it. The hiring of a private lawyer is too expensive, he said. He tried to save for one for his wife, but the man just took his money and disappeared. Retrospectively, Johnnie said he was not even a lawyer.
Johnnie barely gratta. He works as a truck driver and pays the cartel $ 2,200 a month so that they do not kill his relatives yet in Mexico. The family lives in a garage and has trouble paying food.
“All my money I have is to go to them,” he said.
Despite uncertainty, Itzel feels good in his new life.
“I learn English,” she said, smiling. And when they were asked how she thought of the hearing, she said, “SINTO TRAINO”, unshakable.
She saw another boy whom she knew of Bell High School enter the courtroom. He also had no lawyer either.
Statistics show that, without representation, lightening rates fall. But their situation is not unusual.
About 56% of children with unanswered cases have a legal representation, a figure that had dropped previous years and that the defenders fear not being funding if the funding does not take place.
Earlier this month, the administration ended a contract which financed lawyers representing around 26,000 children – around 4,700 in California – as well as basic legal services. The contract financed the minors who crossed the border alone or without a legal guardian.
“If this decision is based on legal services, the future is dark,” said Marion Donovan -Kaloust, director of legal services to the immigrant Defenders Law Center, whose organization represents around 2,000 children – including a 7 months – within the framework of the contract. “Without a lawyer by their side, we will see many children who have fled desperate circumstances, who are eligible for legal means to stay in the United States, unnecessarily expelled.”
The center and other legal service providers continued the administration in the Northern District of California, arguing that the program ended without reason, violating the federal laws put in place to protect children from trafficking.
Lawyers have declared in a prosecution that “actions will also cause chaos throughout the legal system of immigration and are particularly harmful because they come at a time when the government reintegrated the accelerated file for the referral of cases for unaccompanied children.”
Immigration courts are notoriously bottleneck, with more than 3 million cases pending.
In the meantime, the lawyers and the children they represent expect in the limbo while they are trying to understand their next move. And families like Itzel imagine what the world would look like if they were expelled.
“I joked with her that she returned to Mexico,” said Johnnie. “She starts to cry.” I don’t want to go back. “She likes to go to school now.
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