PAUL E. RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Unaccompanied children's program
Thirty shelters have contracted with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to keep custody of unaccompanied immigrant children.

In California, five shelters participate in the program, one of them in Orange County. Since March 2006, this shelter has received 200 children.

Ninety percent were taken into custody outside California.
Ninety percent were placed with sponsors outside California.
Sixty percent were placed with legal residents or U.S. citizens.
Forty percent were placed with relatives who are illegal immigrants.
Two children stayed with family in Orange County.
Six children asked to return immediately to their countries of origin.
Register policy
The Orange County Register's policy is to withhold the last names of illegal immigrants who, fearing deportation, might not otherwise speak to the paper and whose voices are important to a story or will increase understanding of an issue.

In this article, the Register also withheld the address of the Orange County shelter to avoid putting its children, some of whom are sought by smugglers and human traffickers, at risk.
The law
Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the U.S. transferred responsibility for unaccompanied immigrant children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. The change came when the agency previously known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service split into three agencies that focus on border patrol, immigration enforcement and immigration services.

Since March 2003, the refugee office has been in charge of caring for children in federal custody and reuniting them with sponsors in the United States or in their countries of origin.

Sunday, March 11, 2007
At home here, briefly children await move
By AMY TAXIN
The Orange County Register
In a lone classroom on a congested boulevard in northern Orange County, Wilmer scribbles the answers to his English grammar work sheet with little notion of what life in California might be like outside his window.

During the 10 months he's spent in youth-detention shelters since getting caught hopping trains across the U.S.-Mexico border, the 16-year-old Honduran has spent nearly all of his time in class or in the dormitory he shares with 11 other boys. But even the simple things – the opportunity to go to school and learn English – have convinced him he'd like to stay.

"I came here suffering, sleeping in the wilderness," said Wilmer, clutching a copy of Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham."

"Here they've given us food and a place to stay."

It has been a year since the Orange County shelter entered a program under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides temporary care for thousands of children caught illegally crossing the border each year. The shelter, previously a home for troubled teenagers, is one of 30 nationwide that work with Health and Human Services under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which requires the department to reunite the children with family in the United States or back home.

Most children are caught by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the border or in a drop house soon after they've crossed, usually in Texas or Arizona. Children who are traveling alone and have no guardian to claim them are kept in federal custody and transferred temporarily to one of these shelters, which provide a more nurturing detention environment than an adult facility.

The federal government began partnering with outside shelters a decade ago under a legal settlement over detention conditions for unaccompanied children who face deportation proceedings. Nearly 8,000 children were placed through Health and Human Services in the past fiscal year under the $77 million-a-year program, previously run by immigration authorities.

In Orange County, most of the children come from Central America, most are teens, most are caught traveling alone or with a smuggler, and few have any connection to Southern California except that a shelter here has space for them. The Orange County shelter was chosen because of its proximity to Los Angeles, a city with a large Central American population and one that has been the site of immigration raids, which can leave undocumented children on their own, said Maureen Dunn, Health and Human Services' director of unaccompanied children's services.

As many as 34 children can sleep in immaculately kept twin beds in separate boys' and girls' quarters at the shelter. They attend class while waiting to see who will take them. So far, the shelter has received 200 children, who stay an average of 45 days.

"We didn't open it because there was a need here. We opened it because there was a need in general," said Victor Salazar, a case manager at the shelter.

PIZZA, BOWLING AND SCHOOL
For Sandra, a Guatemalan girl who moved out of her family's earthen hut when she was 10, the past three months at the shelter have been like a gift. The 16-year-old borrowed $3,000 to pay a smuggler to bring her across the border to escape a degrading job as a live-in maid, a mother who beat her and a father who stopped paying for her to go to school more than six years ago.

When border agents caught Sandra in Arizona, she burst into tears. Now she says she doesn't know what would have happened to her had she not been caught. For Sandra, life in detention – where she has shoes, clothes, English classes and weekly field trips to the pizza parlor or bowling alley – has been a bit like returning to childhood.

"No one has ever treated me this well," she said. "I'd like to stay here, but I can't. I don't know if they'll deport me, but I'd like to stay and study, make a career for myself, do something good."

Jim Hayes, field director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles, said his department has 72 hours to determine whether children have family here or can return to their countries of origin; otherwise, the children enter Health and Human Services' care. Mexican children are rarely turned over to the department because U.S. law allows them to return to their country directly from the border.

Hayes said the immigration agency aims to keep families together, meaning parents without proper documentation could be deported with their child. "We're not in a position where we can simply ignore someone who is here illegally," he said.

Children are assigned to a nearby shelter, but often there isn't enough space in Texas and Arizona. A child typically arrives with a relative's phone number. A caseworker calls and screens the relative, who must undergo an FBI background check, be fingerprinted and prove emotional and financial stability to take the child.

In ideal situations, sponsors have legal residence or U.S. citizenship, caseworkers said. Undocumented relatives can act as sponsors but must travel to the shelter to prove their identity. They are often unwilling to make the trip, fearing they could get caught by immigration authorities.

"Whether you come here by car, bus or airplane, it's up to you. But it's a risk," Salazar said.

If a child asks to go home, a trip is arranged through a consulate. Children who come from abusive homes may be placed in federal foster care if they have nowhere else to go.

If a child turns 18, he or she will be transferred to an adult detention facility.

While at the shelter, children travel to Los Angeles for immigration court hearings and attend on-site classes every day for "survival skills" – English, basic finances and the do's and don'ts of school in the United States. While most students are teenagers, teacher Rita Gurrola said, some have had little schooling, making learning a challenge.

"Most of them had to work for their families, so their education has been cut short," she said. "I've had some students who didn't know how to write their names."

TELLING THE TRUTH
Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, Katerin sits on a wooden bench in a courtroom overlooking downtown Los Angeles. When the immigration judge calls her name, she walks forward and takes her seat in an oversize leather-backed chair that envelops her tiny frame.

The 10-year-old takes her oath after the judge explains the importance of "telling the truth" and then turns in a request for an extension, vowing to return to court in a few weeks.

An hour later, a caseworker takes Katerin to meet her mother so she can go to her new home – an encounter both of them have dreamed about for five years.

"We're going to seek advice to see who can take her" to court, said her mother, an illegal immigrant who works as a restaurant cook. "Right now I'm just hoping to get her into school."

Children who remain in federal custody a long time may see their immigration cases decided while they are at the shelter, said Tara Naselow, deputy chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles. Children placed with relatives will have their cases transferred to a court near their new homes.

It is unclear what happens to most of the children once they leave federal custody.

Children who were persecuted or abused may apply for asylum or special legal protection; others return to their countries by choice or necessity.

Immigration experts believe few children who stay in the country with relatives will show up for their court dates. Many are likely issued deportation orders and simply don't know it, said Sergio Medina, field coordinator for unaccompanied children's services at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which acts as a liaison between regional shelters and Health and Human Services.

"We know the rate of not showing up to court is pretty high," Medina said. "It's sort of a strange program. They go into this black hole, and there's no system to follow up."

Hoping to increase court attendance, the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants began pairing children with attorneys after they left the shelters.

In the past two years, the nonprofit organization has worked with 1,800 children, nearly all of whom attended court, said Eric Sigmon, an assistant with the program.

With bed space for 34 children at a time, the Orange County shelter is a tiny piece in a much larger network of sites that house hundreds of children.

For most children who stop here, it's a short stint on a long journey that brought them to the United States and may – or may not – bring them back.

"You have only this very short period of time," Gurrola said, "to teach them what America is all about."


Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or ataxin@ocregister.com

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Readers' comments

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Strikes meodd that what started out as a home for AMERICAN CHILDREN is now being used to take care of ILLEGALS. This country is on a fast road to becoming just another third world nation. Thanks a lot GW. Time to learn Mandarin so that when the Chinese own everything I an at least get a job.


shane - Mar. 11, 2007 Report Abuse