Thread: Illegal Alien Children Surge Into Conn. Courts

Immigrant Children Surge Into Conn. Courts

Christian Nolan, The Connecticut Law TribuneJanuary 12, 2015

Eric Gay

Thousands of unaccompanied minors are crossing the border into the U.S. to flee the violence in their Central American countries because of gangs and civil wars.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimated that nearly 70,000 unaccompanied alien children were apprehended at the southern border during the 2014 fiscal year, a 77 percent increase from the year before.

Their flight north has been felt in Connecticut. Between January and July 2014, 325 unaccompanied minor immigrants who were apprehended at the border were later released to relatives here. Many of those youths are now making their way to the Federal Immigration Court in Hartford.

According to attorney Milagros Cruz, of Milagros Immigration Law in Hartford, the court has been forced to add an entire docket to handle the large number of cases for these youths, many of whom seek political asylum here. The cases are called "surge cases," she said.

"They're just running," said Cruz, who chairs the Connecticut Bar Association's Immigration Law Section. "They don't want to flee their countries. They have to because they're in danger."

Cruz said the cases make their way to immigration court most often because deportation proceedings have been brought against the minors. The minors typically fight deportation by seeking asylum because of the circumstances in their home country.

Cruz said the results of the cases are mixed, some are deported, others are allowed to stay. She said it all depends on the evidence in a particular case.

"They're the toughest cases in immigration court to win in my opinion," said Cruz.

The issue was brought further to light in Connecticut last month, when the first case of this kind to make its way to the state Appellate Court was decided.

The case is In Re: Pedro J.C. The boy's full name was not revealed in court documents because he is a minor. A trial judge approved his deportation but the state appellate judges said it would be in the 17-year-old's best interest to remain in Connecticut, as opposed to being sent back to Guatemala.

Pedro is from Baja Verapaz. His family is of Mayan ethnicity and members of that group suffer discrimination there. Pedro's grandfather was killed in an anti-Mayan massacre during the Guatemalan civil war in the 1980s.

Pedro's father owned a small piece of land and their home was made out of mud. When Pedro was 12, his father came to Connecticut to work and send financial support back to his family. A year later he was killed in a train accident.

The family had trouble surviving financially after the father's death. They couldn't afford school tuition and didn't have enough food to eat. To get home, Pedro has to cross the land of a neighbor who had fought against the Mayans in the civil war. The neighbor doesn't want the family crossing his land and has yelled at and threatened to kill Pedro for doing so.

By October 2012 Pedro said he was afraid to keep living there in Guatemala. He wanted to come to the U.S., get an education and provide for his family financially.

His mother, Dominga, was afraid something could happen to her son by letting him go. But she ultimately borrowed $3,000 to pay a person called a "coyote" to take Pedro to the U.S. illegally.

Pedro embarked on the journey with strangers from another village and one neighbor. He did not eat enough on the trip and could not sleep for fear of being left behind. It took 15 days to arrive at the U.S. border with Mexico. He then waited a month before attempting to cross the border. He stayed with other migrants in a house.

Finally, after five days of climbing steep, rocky mountains and crossing a desert, he and his original group tried crossing the border. They were caught by U.S. Border Patrol.

He was separated from his adult neighbor and cried for days. After spending a couple days in Arizona, he was sent to a home for children in Texas. Authorities eventually tracked down Pedro's mother and asked if there was anyone in the U.S. the boy could stay with.

The mother contacted a cousin living illegally in Connecticut who agreed to let Pedro stay with him. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of Unaccompanied Children's Services with the Department of Homeland Security, released him into the custody of the cousin with a couple of conditions. One was that he make sure Pedro attend all further legal proceedings at his local immigration court. The agreement also required the cousin to make his best efforts to establish legal guardianship at his local court.

Pedro, in the summer of 2013, filed a petition in Bridgeport Superior Court claiming he was a neglected child. By April 2014, Pedro filed a motion seeking special immigrant juvenile status in order to stay in the U.S.

At the conclusion of a court hearing, a trial judge acknowledged the history of repression for Mayans in Guatemala but said there was "nothing that this court can do."

Although the judge believed allowing Pedro to leave the way he did could be construed as neglect, he thinks his mother would take him back. The mother, meanwhile, has said she'd prefer Pedro stay in the U.S. with his cousin.

"I believe [the mother] would take him back and take care of him. She did what she thought was best to send him out of the country, and if he came back there, she would take care of him," the judge said. "I cannot find that it's in his best interest to remain in the United States and not be returned because that doesn't comply with the facts."

Pedro appealed the judge's ruling to the state Appellate Court with the help of student interns at Yale Law School.

In a written ruling released last month, the state Appellate Court judges sided with Pedro and decided to let him stay in Connecticut for the time being.

"The court did not make any findings as to the benefits for the petitioner of being returned to Guatemala rather than remaining in the United States. The court also ignored the fact that there is no proposed plan in place for return of the petitioner to Guatemala," wrote Judge Christine Keller. "Without a plan, or continuing authority to order one to address past neglect and fully investigate the respondent's current living conditions and ability to care for the petitioner, there is no basis to conclude that return to Guatemala would be in his best interest."

A hearing will take place that will let Pedro make his case for why he should be granted special immigrant juvenile status in order to stay in the U.S. This will be scheduled before Pedro's 18th birthday on March 1.

The appeal was argued by Assistant State Attorney General Michael Besso. A representative for the attorney general's office seemed happy with the ruling.

"While we do not anticipate being a part of the future proceeding, we agree with the Appellate Court's decision to remand the case to provide the child an opportunity to put forth evidence in court to support his claim for special immigration status," said Jaclyn Falkowski.

Read more: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/id=12027...#ixzz3OdlZBQCV

A picture is always worth a thousand words. No car, no home, no luggage, no food, no money. Enough said. Get them out of here.

His mother, Dominga, was afraid something could happen to her son by letting him go. But she ultimately borrowed $3,000 to pay a person called a "coyote" to take Pedro to the U.S. illegally.

You should have borrowed it for food, tuition and a car, gone to work and paid it off. That's a lot of money in Guatemala. Courts are so stupid to believe these stories. Who besides a drug cartel would loan someone who can't afford food or school tuition, $3,000 to send a minor to the US to work illegally? And stop trespassing on someone else's property. That's why they want to shoot you, not because you're Mayan. Try trespassing on property here in the US and see how much grief you'll get. You low-rent everything-is-about you type of people. We have sorrier real tales of our own here about fathers being murdered or killed in accidents. We don't need pr want yours. By the way, why don't you just move to a friendlier part of Guatemala? That's what people here do when they don't like their neighbors or vice versa.

And shame shame shame on Yale Law Students for filing such lawsuits and representing people who aren't supposed to be here. SHAME!!