Judge halts US policy on minors

SAN FRANCISCO -- A U.S. judge halted a federal change from being implemented in California that would have made it more difficult for certain minors to get immigration papers and legal protection.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins of the Northern District issued a preliminary injunction against a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy that state probate courts could not make the necessary determinations for the plaintiffs to get Special Immigrant Juvenile status.

The status is for immigrant minors abused, abandoned or neglected by their parents and can lead to permanent residency and eventually citizenship. The cases start before an immigration judge but must go before a state court to determine if a child suffered at the hands of his or her parents.

"The core of this dispute is whether California probate courts must have 'the capacity to order reunification with a parent' in order to have jurisdiction to make the required factual findings under the [Special Immigrant Juvenile] statute," Cousins wrote in the injunction order. "The court concludes that plaintiffs have raised serious questions going to the merits."

Under California law the juvenile, probate, and family court divisions of the superior courts have jurisdiction to determine if it isn't in children's best interest to be reunited with their families and to make factual findings necessary for the federal government to grant the status. The lawsuit alleges the citizenship and immigration service stopped respecting those rulings by California probate courts.

The government said the statute governing the special status required a state court to be able to reunify children with their families, something advocates said was a misreading of the law.

"They're saying that the probate court doesn't have the ability to reunify the minor with their parents, and it's not a court that can make the SIJ findings" said Sirena Castillo, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in Los Angeles representing the plaintiffs pro bono along with lawyers from Public Counsel and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

"It's just not anywhere in the SIJ statute that the court has to have this ability," she added.

The plaintiffs also alleged the change violates the Administrative Procedures Act, something government attorneys deny, saying it was only internal guidance and legal regardless.

The citizenship service did not provide a statement by press time and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Government attorneys argued there had been no policy change and the plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail on the merits.

"There is no change in policy that resulted in USCIS's determinations that a state court lacked jurisdiction to make reunification determinations for petitioners," government attorneys wrote in a brief earlier this month opposing a preliminary injunction.

The case involves four youths from New Zealand, Mexico and Honduras. All four said they were abused or abandoned by their families, according to filings in the case.

Castillo said the next step in the case would be to file for class certification, and while she is not sure how many minors in California fit the class definition, she was sure it was more than four.

The case is not the first time the administration has made it more difficult to get the status. In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ended the practice of administrative closure in immigration courts which allowed judges to indefinitely postpone cases, often while an immigrant waited for a bureaucratic process to be completed.

Many minors seeking the special status were granted administrative closure in the past, delaying their deportations while they waited to be eligible for green cards or for the state court portion of their case to proceed.