The Double Exclusion of Immigrant Youth

• Author: Laila L. Hlass, Rachel Leya Davidson & Austin Kocher
• Position: Clinical Professor of Law, Tulane University/Director, End SIJS Backlog Coalition, National Immigration Project/Research Assistant Professor, Newhouse School of Public Communications and Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University
• Pages: 1407-1493

The Double Exclusion of Immigrant Youth

LAILA L. HLASS, * RACHEL LEYA DAVIDSON** & AUSTIN KOCHER***

Congress created Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) in 1990 to

protect vulnerable children from deportation by providing a pathway to

lawful permanent residency and citizenship. Although relatively few

immigrant children applied for SIJS in the early years of the program,

the number of SIJS petitions grew significantly over the past decade. The

growth of SIJS petitions coincides with growing numbers of immigrant

youth arriving at the U.S.–Mexico border and with the politicization of

immigrant youth who are increasingly represented as national security

threats. Despite the high stakes of SIJS cases, remarkably little empirical

research examines the bureaucratic implementation, procedural out-

comes, and social effects of the SIJS program. Immigrant youth who

apply for SIJS may face discrimination based on age, immigration status,

race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and language use. SIJS peti-

tioners are often approaching a formative stage of social development,

the transition from childhood to adulthood, which exacerbates the con-

sequences of SIJS delays and outcomes. Moreover, SIJS petitioners are

subject to disparities in representation, immigration and criminal

enforcement, and access to visas based on national quotas determined

by Congress. There is, therefore, an urgent need to understand whether

the SIJS program accomplishes its stated goal of protecting children or

undermines its humanitarian objectives by exacerbating immigrant

children’s vulnerability.

To address this need, this Article presents a systematic study of chil-

dren seeking SIJS and SIJS-based lawful permanent resident (LPR) status

using anonymized case-by-case SIJS data obtained from U.S. Citizenship

and Immigration Services (USCIS) through the Freedom of Information

Act. The data in this Article represent 153,374 I-360 petitions for SIJS

filed between 2010 and 2021, and 35,651 I-485 LPR applications filed

between 2013 and 2021. As a result of this analysis, the Article finds that

the SIJS program has failed to meet the growing need for fair and timely

* Clinical Professor of Law, Tulane University. © 2023, Laila L. Hlass, Rachel Leya Davidson &

Austin Kocher.

** Director, End SIJS Backlog Coalition, National Immigration Project.

*** Research Assistant Professor, Newhouse School of Public Communications and Transactional

Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University. The authors are grateful to “Ariel” for

their insights, feedback, and willingness to share their experiences for this project out of a desire to

support other SIJS youth and support broader SIJS advocacy efforts. For helpful insights and

conversations at various stages of this project, the authors thank Chiara Galli, Dalia Castillo-Granados,

Lindsay M. Harris, Jaclyn Kelly-Widmer, Talia Peleg, and Sarah Sherman-Stokes. The authors also

wish to thank Andrea K. Junco, Bailey Monta~

no, Jennifer Conlon, Katia Leiva, and Kayla Ogden for

their excellent research assistance.

1407

protection for vulnerable immigrant children. Instead, SIJS petitioners

encounter avoidable delays, inconsistent denial rates, and a growing

backlog of SIJS petitioners who are already approved for SIJS but whose

lives are on hold while they wait for visas to become available. In addi-

tion to raising significant concerns about USCIS’s management of the

SIJS program, these findings have broader implications for how legal

scholars conceptualize the relationship between immigrant youth, pur-

portedly humanitarian immigration policies, and the administrative state.

We argue that, rather than viewing immigrant youth only as vulnerable

subjects who appeal to the state for protection, immigrant youth’s vulner-

ability vis-à-vis the state should be theorized as a form of politically

induced vulnerability—or what some scholars have referred to as “pre-

carity.” We argue that precarity manifests itself in SIJS petitioners as

what we call a crisis of double exclusion, which refers to immigrant

children’s exile from a protected childhood as well as exclusion from a

successful transition to adulthood. These findings illustrate the need for

future research on SIJS, ongoing monitoring of the program, and institu-

tional reforms. Ultimately, we call for action to improve the SIJS pro-

gram and build power for immigrant children.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .............................................. 1409

..........................................

I. THE PRECARITY OF SIJS CHILDREN AND LEGAL VIOLENCE WITHIN THE

SIJS PROCESS 1417

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. PRECARITY OF SIJS YOUTH 1420

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

B. THE LEGISLATIVE AMBIVALENCES OF SPECIAL IMMIGRANT JUVENILE

STATUS 1425

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C. PROCEDURAL BARRIERS TO OBTAINING SIJS 1430

. . .

D. THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S ATTACKS ON THE SIJS PROGRAM 1436

. . . . . . . .

E. LACK OF TRANSPARENCY REGARDING SIJS PROTECTIONS 1440

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II. AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SIJS PROGRAM 1443

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A. THE POLITICIZATION OF THE SIJS PROGRAM 1445

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. THE PRECARITY OF SIJS YOUTH 1449

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Nationality 1450

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Removal Proceedings 1456

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Gender 1460

1408 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 111:1407

4. Legal Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1465

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Geography 1469

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. AGE AND AGING 1477

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

D. THE SIJS BACKLOG 1481

. . . . . . . . . .

III. THEORETICAL AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF KEY FINDINGS 1486

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A. ENSURING SAFE AND EFFECTIVE LEGAL REPRESENTATION IN THE

SIJS PROCESS 1488

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

B. ABOLISHING THE SIJS BACKLOG 1489

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C. ENSURING EXPEDITIOUS PROCESSING 1490

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

D. DATA TRANSPARENCY 1491

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSION 1492

INTRODUCTION

Ariel

1

Ariel is a pseudonym. See Jasmine Aguilera, A Years-Long Immigration Backlog Puts Thousands

of Abused Kids in Limbo, TIME (Dec. 16, 2021, 11:25 AM), https://time.com/6128025/abused-

immigrant-kids-sijs-backlog/.

is a nonbinary, immigrant youth who escaped escalating gender-based vio-

lence in El Salvador at age thirteen and fled to the United States.

2

Ariel came to

the United States hoping to reunite with their father and build a new life, but that

future proved illusory.

3

As an undocumented young person, Ariel had few resources,

no ability to work legally, and no access to financial aid to attend college.

4

As a

Latina/o

5

The term “Latina/o” includes a diverse collective of persons and communities, which “necessarily

oversimplifies and centers identity in the colonial relationship while also lacking in gender inclusivity.”

Marc Tizoc Gonzalez, Saru Matambanadzo & Sheila I. Ve

´lez Martı

´nez, Latina and Latino Critical

Legal Theory: LatCrit Theory, Praxis and Community, 12 R ´

EVISTA DIREITO E PRAXIS 1316, 1318 n.1

(2021). Even knowing these imperfections, the authors use “Latina/o” generally to refer to people with

nationalities or ancestries from Latin America. We find this term most helpful, as robust conversation

continues regarding how to prioritize inclusivity along the gender spectrum with other evolving terms,

such as Latinx or Latine, while also honoring how community members use terms that they are most

comfortable with. See, e.g., Antonio Campos, What’s the Difference Between Hispanic, Latino and

Latinx?, U.C. (Oct. 6, 2021), https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/choosing-the-right-word-

hispanic-latino-and-latinx [https://perma.cc/6BJL-CYT4].

youth, Ariel was at higher risk of over-policing within their neighborhood in

New York and in school, which only exacerbated fears of impending deportation.

6

See HILARY BURDGE, ADELA C. LICONA & ZAMI T. HYEMINGWAY, GAY-STRAIGHT ALL.

NETWORK, LGBTQ YOUTH OF COLOR: DISCIPLINE DISPARITIES, SCHOOL PUSH-OUT, AND THE SCHOOL-

TO-PRISON PIPELINE 2, 4 (2014), https://www.njjn.org/uploads/digital-library/GSA-Network_LGBTQ_

brief_FINAL-web_Oct-2014.pdf [https://perma.cc/D9V5-MH8T] (“LGBTQ youth of color are bullied

1.

2. See id.

3. See id.

4. See id.

5.

6.

2023] THE DOUBLE EXCLUSION OF IMMIGRANT YOUTH 1409