Immigration Article of the Day: Adultification of Immigrant Children by Laila Hlass

Adultification of Immigrant Children by Laila Hlass, 34 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 200 (2020)

Abstract

Children occupy a “liminal childhood,” in the immigration legal system, as they are provided neither child-appropriate protections, nor necessarily the meager rights afforded to adults. At times, they are viewed through a protectionist lens, infantilized and robbed of agency. More commonly, however, immigrant children—largely teens of color—are subjected to adultification. Adultification refers to the phenomenon whereby children of color suffer a wide variety of negative outcomes across a diverse range of public systems, including education, juvenile justice, and child welfare, because they are perceived as more adult-like than their white peers.

This article casts new light on the mistreatment of children across the spectrum of immigration legal proceedings. To remedy the injustice of the current situation, I reimagine an immigration legal system founded in the principle of proportionality, which would recognize the vulnerabilities of and bias impacting migrant children. In particular, I argue that a reconceptualization of migrant children should incorporate lessons learned from failures within the juvenile justice system, which has been reckoning with problems of adultification and infantilization of children for more than a century.

KJ