Justice Department weakens guidelines for protecting chilkdren in immigration court
Reuters reports that the U.S. Justice Department has issued new guidelines for immigration judges that remove some instructions for how to protect unaccompanied juveniles appearing in their courtrooms. A Dec. 20 memo, issued by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) replaces 2007 guidelines, spelling out policies and procedures judges should follow in dealing with children who crossed the border illegally alone and face possible deportation. The new memo removes suggestions contained in the 2007 memo for how to conduct “child-sensitive questioning” and adds reminders to judges to maintain “impartiality” even though “juvenile cases may present sympathetic allegations.” The new document also changes the word “child” to “unmarried individual under the age of 18” in many instances.
Here is the new memo. The conclusion:
“Immigration cases involving juveniles are challenging; there is no blanket approach applicable to all such cases. Although juvenile cases warrant special consideration in appropriate circumstances, Immigration Judges should also be mindful that legal requirements applicable to all immigration cases are not necessarily diminished solely because the respondent is a juvenile.”
How might immigration judges read the memo? The Hill reports that a spokeswoman for the National Association of Immigration Judges suggested the changes were part of a Trump administration effort to turn immigration judges into an assembly line for deportations. The “overall tone” of the memo “is very distressing and concerning to immigration judges,” Dana Marks told Reuters. “There is a feeling that the immigration courts are just being demoted into immigration enforcement offices, rather than neutral arbiters,” Marks added. “There has been a relentless beating of the drum toward enforcement rather than due process.”
KJ