Border Report: The Battle Over Lawyers for Children in Immigration Court

Two siblings, ages 15 and 17, sat in Judge Olga Attia’s immigration courtroom, headphones pressed to their ears so they could hear through a Spanish interpreter what the judge was explaining to them. 

Attia, appearing on a television screen above the judge’s desk that morning in early April, talked through the children’s rights in immigration court, including some of the ways that children’s cases differ from adult cases. 

Instead of applying for asylum in immigration court, children can apply first with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to go through a less adversarial process. Some are also eligible to get green cards after going through a state court process to assess whether they’ve been neglected, abandoned or abused. 

“That’s why it’s so important to look for an attorney who may be able to help you look for relief before the court and outside the court,” Attia told the children.

Since 2012, according to court records, Congress has appropriated funding to pay for attorneys for some children facing court alone, but the Trump administration abruptly stopped paying the contracted lawyers in March. In a lawsuit over the stop-work order, federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has twice ordered the government to resume payments.

Martínez-Olguín found that the harm to both unaccompanied children and to the legal services organizations representing them was clear.

“The public interest is not served by maintaining agency actions that conflict with federal law and federal agencies’ own regulations,” Martínez-Olguín wrote in her decision. 

On April 30, following the judge’s decision, the government entered into a new contract with the legal service providers, according to Renee Garcia of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, one of  the organizations that represents children in court. However, the money hasn’t arrived yet, and the organizations still haven’t been paid for work done after the judge’s first order on April 1.

Garcia said the Trump administration has filed an emergency motion to pause the judge’s orders.

“This causes problems for the plaintiff organizations because it remains unclear whether funding will actually continue under the terms of the contract,” Garcia said. “It hinders their ability to plan and to hire back any staff they previously had to lay off, and could also leave them high and dry with unpaid work if funding ceases again.”

Though people in immigration court have a right to an attorney, that right only goes so far because unlike in criminal court, the government does not provide lawyers to people who can’t afford them. That means people facing potential deportation only have attorneys if they can pay for them or find one to represent them for free. 

Advocates have long critiqued what that means in practice for children facing immigration court cases alone — there have been instances of toddlers representing themselves in front of immigration judges. 

Casa Cornelia Law Center offers representation to children who arrived at the border without their parents and who are detained in government custody in San Diego, but children who are not detained often have to find lawyers on their own. 

Children’s cases appear on a special docket, meaning one judge hears those cases on the same morning or afternoon instead of scattering them among adult cases. I attended two children’s dockets at the San Diego Immigration Court recently. 

The children in those court hearings said they lived all over the county, from Fallbrook to Chula Vista. Many were from Haiti, Mexico or Guatemala. None appeared to be in government custody, but rather lived with their parents or other relatives who had come to the United States separately.

Some had found attorneys to help them. Most of the attorneys indicated that the children would be applying for asylum with USCIS or special immigrant juvenile status with the state court system, or both. 

The attorney for one 16-year-old girl said that she would be applying for a T-visa — a special visa given to someone who was a victim of human trafficking.

In most of the cases, the judge told the children that their guardian or attorney could come to court without them as long as they were in school. She moved quickly from case to case, spending 15 minutes or less for each one as she checked on the status. 

Those who showed up to court for the first time and didn’t have attorneys took longer. In those cases, she brought the children before her in groups, so that those who spoke the same language could hear the interpreter together, and she went through the explanation of their rights, as with the teenage siblings. 

Then, she called them individually to hear their questions and address what needed to happen next in each case. 

At the end of the hearing for the teenage siblings, who were originally from Guatemala and now live in Fallbrook, she told them to keep working hard. 

“I wish you great success in school,” Attia said. 

In Other News

Anastasio Hernández Rojas: The family of a longtime San Diego resident who died after border officials beat him and shocked him with a Taser finally received a decision from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the end of April. The decision, which I wrote about for Capital & Main, found that officials killed Hernández Rojas and that a subsequent attempted coverup prevented the family from getting justice. This is the first time that the human rights commision, which is part of the Organization of American States, has made such a finding in a case involving U.S. law enforcement. Related to the case, the Trump administration’s pick to lead Customs and Border Protection is facing scrutiny due to his potential involvement in the coverup. Rodney Scott was then in charge of the San Diego Sector of Border Patrol.

Lost at sea: After a panga boat capsized in early May, killing three people including a teen from India, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged five people with human smuggling or unlawfully transporting migrants, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has called for the death penalty. The teen’s 10-year-old sister is still missing. We often see an increase in these kinds of crossings when the government increases restrictions on requesting asylum, as the Trump administration did on its first day in office in January.

A homecoming: A man who was among those arrested in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace raid is back with his family after a judge released him on bond from Otay Mesa Detention Center, Gustavo Solis reported for KPBS.

A wrong turn: A 64-year-old mother who mistakenly drove into the Marine Corps Recruit Depot near the San Diego airport is now facing potential deportation, Alexandra Mendoza reported for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

An emergency landing: A CBP Air and Marine helicopter landed in La Mesa on Friday afternoon to bring a Border Patrol dog to a vet after a rattlesnake bit the dog in the Otay Mountain area. 

Corruption at the border: Three CBP officers are facing charges related to accusations that they allowed smugglers to bring migrants through their lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Domenick Candelieri reported for Fox 5. 

Agent misconduct: Sofía Mejías-Pascoe of inewsource has been following the case of former Border Patrol Agent Juan Prishker who is facing charges of false imprisonment and sexual battery from accusations about his behavior while on duty. 

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