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  1. #1
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    In immigration court in Omaha, fate of migrant children on the line

    POSTED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 2014 12:15 AM


    By Martha Stoddard / World-Herald Bureau


    LINCOLN — The slight teenager with the dark blue T-shirt sat hunched in the chair next to attorney Julia Cryne.


    His eyes darted around the room: to the judge sitting below a U.S. Department of Justice seal, to the government’s attorney typing rapidly on a laptop, to the interpreter speaking quietly into an almost invisible microphone.


    At Cryne’s gesture, the boy gingerly put on the headphones that fed him the Spanish translation of what the adults were saying around him.


    He still looked bewildered.


    Cryne told the judge that the youngster was 15 years old, living with an uncle in Crete, Nebraska; that he speaks Kanjobal, one of the indigenous languages of Guatemala, and doesn’t know enough Spanish for her to communicate with him; and that he needed his case continued to another date so a Qanjobal interpreter could be brought in.


    What the Omaha attorney didn’t have to say was that her client was among a recent wave of children who have crossed the southern border into the United States without a parent or guardian.


    Most such unaccompanied children in Nebraska and Iowa end up in this court sooner or later, facing government attempts to deport them. The federal immigration court in Omaha is one of 59 across the country, in which more than 235 judges decide the fates of people charged with violating the nation’s immigration laws.


    The steep increase in unaccompanied illegal migrant children has further strained the already backlogged courts. In part because of the juvenile cases, the Omaha immigration court became the most backlogged in the nation this fiscal year, up from second-worst last year.


    More than 57,000 unaccompanied children have been taken into custody upon arriving in the United States since Oct. 1, up from about 25,000 in the previous fiscal year.


    Almost all are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — Central American countries where drug trafficking, gang violence and poverty are endemic.


    From Jan. 1 through early last month, 192 of those children in Nebraska and 122 in Iowa were released to live with relatives or other sponsors, under provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008.


    The influx of unaccompanied children has set off a political firestorm.


    Nebraska and Iowa governors have demanded names, identification numbers and other information about the children in their states, citing health and safety concerns, while advocates call the situation in Central America a humanitarian crisis and argue for protecting the children.


    But inside this unpretentious courtroom, housed in an industrial area south of Eppley Airfield, the proceedings are largely devoid of drama.


    Two judges work full time in the Omaha court. On this afternoon, Judge Jack Anderson is presiding over cases from the newly created juvenile docket.


    It’s the first appearance in immigration court for each of the children here today. Their cases reflect the national statistics about unaccompanied children.


    The children whose countries are named in court are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Four out of five are boys.


    Most are teenagers. One recently turned 18. The youngest is 12. Local immigration attorneys say they have seen deportation filings on infants as young as 6 months.


    The children list addresses in towns across Nebraska and Iowa, from as far away as Iowa City and Lexington, Nebraska, and from small villages up to the big city of Omaha.


    Most are staying with aunts, uncles, cousins and brothers. A couple live with their fathers.


    Attorney Kristin Fearnow said the Iowa-Nebraska Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association pushed for the monthly juvenile docket, which made possible a program in which attorneys volunteer to represent children for the day. The program began in February.


    Cryne is the volunteer this afternoon. She handles the cases of four children.


    At the end of each, she withdraws as the child’s attorney and offers the child a list of resources to call for further legal help.


    Any help they get has to be paid for by their families or guardians or offered by attorneys at no cost. Because immigration proceedings are civil matters, not criminal, people facing deportation are not entitled to attorneys. Children from Central America must be given a court hearing before they are deported, or allowed to stay, according to the 2008 law.


    Many migrant children are left to navigate complex legal proceedings on their own.


    Nearly 30 percent of the children in the Omaha immigration court had no attorney during the year that ended Sept. 30, according to a Syracuse University database. Nationally, about 40 percent were unrepresented.


    Those with attorneys have outcomes that are much different from those who do not have attorneys.
    Virtually all the children going through the Omaha court without attorneys during the past decade wound up with deportation orders, according to the Syracuse database.


    By contrast, one-third or more of children represented by attorneys in the Omaha court were allowed to stay in the country. The proportion allowed to stay approached 100 percent for cases decided since 2011.
    “The last place you want to represent yourself without a lawyer is in immigration court,” said Chinedu Igbokwe, an Omaha attorney. “If you represent yourself, you are guaranteed to lose.”


    Fearnow said the immigration attorneys group is trying to find more long-term legal help for the children coming through the Omaha court.


    She and other local immigration attorneys say they believe that most of those in the current wave of unaccompanied children have legitimate claims for asylum, which would give them legal status.


    Teenage boys typically report they are ordered to join gangs or be killed. Girls may be forcibly recruited as “girlfriends” of gang members. The authorities offer little to no protection.


    “They are being targeted, very specifically targeted, by the gangs,” Fearnow said. “They see it happen to their friends, so it’s not an empty threat.”


    Some of the youngsters can seek special immigrant juvenile status — another legal status that is available to children who have been abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent or caregiver.


    A few may be eligible as victims of crimes in the United States or as victims of human trafficking, she said.
    Most of the children in the Omaha courtroom this day have filed or plan to file for asylum, according to their attorneys. Some also will seek special immigrant juvenile status.


    But getting either asylum or special immigrant juvenile status is a long shot, Igbokwe said. Nationally, only 4 percent of applicants of all ages from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras received asylum last year, according to federal statistics.


    Asylum aims to protect people who face torture or persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group. Courts have not generally recognized fear of gang violence as grounds for asylum.
    Seeking asylum is complicated and difficult for anyone, the attorneys say.


    It’s even more difficult for children, who may not be prepared to talk to multiple strangers about the trauma they have endured. The same can be true for special immigrant juvenile status.


    Omaha immigration attorney Virginia Maynes said it was three months before one youngster began talking about the horrific abuse he suffered from his father.


    A key step in seeking special immigrant juvenile status is getting a state court to find that the child had been abused or neglected. State courts vary widely in their willingness to make such determinations for illegal migrant children.


    A more likely outcome is that children may be allowed to stay through the Obama administration’s policy of prosecutorial discretion. Under the policy, the government can drop deportation efforts against illegal migrants who pose little threat to public safety.


    Igbokwe compared prosecutorial discretion to a truce: Illegal migrants are allowed to remain in the country, but they do not get legal status, and deportation proceedings against them could be restarted.


    The best hope for other children may be to keep their immigration cases in limbo as long as possible, Igbokwe said.


    The delay gives them time to prepare for deportation, while allowing for the possibility of changes in the law, their home country or their circumstances.


    “We’re going to fight to win, but we’re also going to prepare for the worst,” Igbokwe said.


    In the Omaha immigration court, backlogs mean delay is unavoidable. The Syracuse University database shows that cases in the Omaha court this year take an average of 839 days — the longest in the country. The national average is 587 days.


    For the few adults in court this afternoon, Anderson set deportation hearings for late 2017 and early 2018.
    The court acts more quickly, however, against immigrants convicted of crimes. Failure to show up for an immigration court proceeding also brings an immediate deportation order.


    Fearnow said most of the unaccompanied children appear as directed because their best chance of staying in the United States is through the legal proceedings.


    In Omaha this afternoon, one child failed to show up for court.


    For the other children there will likely be many more court appearances and more legal proceedings before authorities decide whether to let them stay or send them back.


    “It’s such an individual, case-by-case analysis,” Fearnow said. “One small factor can change the entire stature of someone’s immigration case.”


    World-Herald staff writers Cody Winchester and Alia Conley contributed to this report.


    Contact the writer: 402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com


    http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/in-i...bf690a8ee.html

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    "In Omaha this afternoon, one child failed to show up for court."
    All Countries have bordersÂ* and laws must be respected

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