Thousands of children have fled for their lives to the US seeking asylum. But many are now forced to face deportation judges in complex hearings - without legal representation.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the Department of Justice “began 'fast-tracking' children’s deportation cases" in 2014,” and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson intends to continue with arrests and deportations.
Because of “patchwork” funding for legal counsel, “Children without lawyers were five times more likely to be ordered deported in the nearly 53,000 cases completed between October 2012 and August 2015,” ACLU’s Hector Villagra said in a Los Angeles Times Op-Ed.
ACLU has joined other legal groups in a lawsuit challenging the government’s failure to appoint counsel for these children, some victims of torture and other violence. HRW adds in its amicus brief that this is a violation of their rights under international law.
Villagra says that the government’s excuse is the expense, but he asks what about the money the government spends to hire trained prosecutors. Why is it “too expensive to level the playing field?” He adds that the least the DOJ could do, until a law is passed requiring counsel for migrant children, is hear cases of represented children first.
Sign this petition if you agree with ACLU that the US “can, and must, do better than putting any child through deportation proceedings without a lawyer.” Demand that Jeh Johnson stop deporting children who have been denied legal counsel.
To Jeh Johnson, US Dept of Homeland Security:
Many of the children you are deporting are being sent back to certain death - children seeking asylum from abuse, torture and other violence who have often courageously undertaken perilous journeys to get to safety only to be violated again in the US. Many are not illegal immigrants!
Sending them back to face the torture and violence they fled is no different than sending Jewish children back to Nazi Germany. As you know, the US has also been guilty of that outrage.
Therefore the least your department can do now is hold off on your arrests and deportations of these children until they all have access to legal representation.
I, the undersigned, join Human Rights Watch in declaring these deportations of unrepresented children to be human rights violations, and I also join ACLU in insisting that the US ensure that it is not deporting children who qualify to remain in the US - that all children who face deportation have access to effective legal representation.
Thanks for your time.
