As the number of immigrants and asylum seekers arriving in New York City increases, so does the number of unaccompanied minors, advocates and city officials said at a recent hearing.
Emil Cohen/New York City Council Media Unit
City Councilor Alexa Aviles, chair of the Immigration Committee, and City Councilor Althea Stevens, chair of the Children and Youth Committee, attended Tuesday’s hearing.
Some came as children. Some came to the country as teenagers, and some came without any documents. Others used passports that showed they were of legal age, even if they were not of legal age, just to get on a plane, leave their families and troubled countries, and enter the United States alone.
City Council members heard these stories Tuesday during a public hearing on unaccompanied immigrant minors in the United States and New York City, co-sponsored by the Immigration Committee and the Children and Youth Committee.
Generally, when a minor crosses the border without a parent and encounters an immigration officer, he or she is designated as an unaccompanied minor (UC or UAC) and is referred to by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health. ) will be housed in a shelter. human services. ORRs are required to care for unaccompanied children while their immigration process progresses until a sponsor (parent or relative) can be found.
From October 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, New York City placed 2,873 unaccompanied children into sponsored families, according to Councilwoman Alexa Aviles, chair of the City Council’s Immigration Committee.
Aviles pointed to the council’s Unaccompanied Minors Initiative, launched in 2014 to provide legal representation to minors fleeing violence in Central America, and said the city has I want to make sure I don’t forget the lessons learned.”
“Advocates note that disparities remain in services for immigrant youth before they arrive in the United States as UACs,” she noted at the hearing.
Sierra Craft, executive director of the Coalition for Immigrant Child Advocates and Relief Actions (ICARE), said minors often face judges alone because they do not have the right to represent themselves in immigration court. .
“I was sitting in immigration court recently, and two young siblings from El Salvador, ages 2 and 6, were sitting at the table in front of the judge who was scheduled to represent them,” Craft said. spoke at the public hearing.
“The judge allowed them to proceed and urged the family to find a lawyer, warning that without a lawyer the boys would likely be ordered to leave. After the hearing, I spoke with their families. “I spoke to them and they said they had been looking for a lawyer for almost a year,” she added.
The coalition is calling for increased funding for seven legal services organizations that provide free representation to unaccompanied children facing deportation in New York City.
“Children assisted by ICARE attorneys have a success rate of over 90 percent and are given a real chance to stay here in New York and build a bright future,” said Craft.
Advocates and city officials acknowledged during the hearing that as the number of immigrants and asylum seekers arriving in New York City increases, so too does the number of unaccompanied minors.
Craft said the number of minors needing legal services is also increasing, but funding has been stagnant for five years.
“Despite a growing waiting list and overwhelming demand, we were approved for far less than what is needed to fully meet the need,” Craft said.
Although the federal government is primarily responsible for policies and procedures to ensure the safe release of unaccompanied children in ORR, there are other migrant youth in need in the city. .
The number of children entering foster care increased by 8% in fiscal year 2024, according to the latest Mayor’s Management Report (MMR). This increase was driven by an increase in petitions of indigent minors determined by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to: The child has unmet needs because the child’s parents or caregivers are absent or unable to provide adequate care.
The increase is “in part due to the growing number of immigrant youth in New York City who have no family ties to the area,” the report said. That number has quadrupled in the past two years, from 58 children and youth placed on indigent minor petitions in 2022 to 80 in 2023, ACS officials said. As of August 31, 2024, there are 239 people.
ACS does not track whether a child is an immigrant because the state records system does not provide that information, a spokesperson said in an email to City Limits.
An ACS spokesperson said the agency tracks the number of immigrant youth in foster care to ensure they are referred to legal representation, and currently has approximately 500 immigrant youth with immigration issues. He said children are being held in the system.
But advocates and city council members complained that some young immigrants were not receiving ACS services.
In a statement to City Limits, Kimberly Schertz, an attorney in charge of the Juvenile Rights Practice at the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement to City Limits that some young people under the age of 18 enter the country with legal documents claiming to be adults over the age of 18. However, this is a new development.
“we [are] “The ACS issue challenges young people’s ages and views them as grounds for denying them care,” Schatz said.
“We think the history of black African men coming of age is a contributing factor,” Schertz added. “We also believe that the young people we focus on are just the tip of the iceberg.”
In response to ACS questions, age determinations in these cases are based on both a conversation with the youth and a review of documents such as passports, birth certificates, Homeland Security records, New York City IDs, and other government IDs. I answered that I would evaluate it.
However, Schatz said the ACS has failed to give proper weight to the youth’s statements, with inconsistencies in crediting some documents and ignoring others.
When asked to specify the weight of acceptable documents, ACS did not provide specific information. “The voices of young people are a top priority for ACS and listening to young people is an important part of all our work,” the spokesperson said.
ACS also did not say how many immigrants with passports showing they were 18 years old were admitted as minors or how many were under review, but those cases will be delayed until 2023. He said it started occurring in the second half.
“Unfortunately, having a knowledgeable support person for the youth appears to be the most important factor in engaging the youth in ACS care,” said Schatz. “This is particularly concerning for young people who are approaching the age of 18, and who should contact a lawyer in time to have their indigent child’s claim heard before they reach the age at which they are no longer within the jurisdiction of the Family Court.” It may not be possible.”
Immigrants under 18 and under 21 are eligible for a variety of immigration statuses, including Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS, for immigrants under 21), T visas (for victims of human trafficking), and asylum. There may be cases where .
A city representative said at the hearing that the city’s Office of Asylum Applicant Services (OASO) helps some immigrant youth file SIJS claims, but uses a “proceeding” model. In other words, the lawyer provides advice, but the client still has a large part to make decisions. Use your own device in court.
“We were interested in doing a pilot to see if we could handle cases like that,” said Marcia Gindler, executive director of the Asylum Application Help Center (AAHC). He detailed that 39 SIJS applications were submitted for immigrants, and two were approved. .
City Hall says that whenever possible, immigrants who qualify for SIJS are referred to local organizations that handle these types of cases, but in many cases they are not referred if the immigrant is less than 14 months from their 21st birthday. said. Officials said the initiative is an ongoing effort and the city will review each rejection as it arises.
During the hearing, Aviles expressed concerns and questioned the appropriateness of using the pro se model (which means “in my place” in Latin) for SIJS cases.
In response to Gindler’s responses at the hearing, Aviles said, “We cannot claim to use a model that we know is ineffective in this population, or use a metric of the number of applicants who were able to submit their petitions. It’s a problem to do so.”
“these [are] We must invest our city’s resources appropriately to protect and support our people,” she added. “It doesn’t make sense to me to invest in it just because I’ve got a ton of applications running if I know this isn’t going to work in the long run.”
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