New York state took in the second highest number of unaccompanied migrant children who have been forcibly displaced from Central America because of violence and extreme poverty since January 2014. Now, a large majority of these children, who have the median age of 13, are living in the New York City metropolitan area including Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley.
The majority of these children are from countries with the top murder rates in the world: Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Advocates, worried about their safety, say New York state needs more funds to provide educational, legal, medical and social services.
The Assembly last month held a public hearing on the state's role in addressing the influx of migrant youth from Central America.
Deporting children can have grave consequences because these children are targets for torture, rape, and other violence, said the experts who testified at the hearing.
Advocates who spoke at the Assembly hearing in New York City on Sept. 16 told lawmakers the state needs to create opportunities for advocates to help match these children with attorneys. They said more funds are required to create a coherent social workers' network for these children who suffer a from a variety of traumas, the advocates said.
There are two types of children who are coming into New York: those who are sheltered in the state for less than a month and then will be released to another location, and those who will remain in New York state. In both cases, the children need extensive social, legal, and health services.
"This is a topic that has brought about a lot of emotions and a lot of attention, and in some cases, some fervent positions that may or may not reflect what we as a country have stood and what we as state have stood for," said Marco Crespo, a Democratic member of the New York State Assembly. "We are here to listen and learn about the services that we should provide to best assist in these families as legislators."
At last month's hearing, the Assembly committees on Social Services and Children and Families, as well as the Assembly Task Force on New Americans, heard testimony from four panels of witnesses including representatives of state and city government; organizations providing legal and social services, such as Catholic Charities, the Safe Passage Project, and The Door; as well as other interested groups, such as the New York Immigration Coalition and International Network for Public Schools.
"Investing in their future means that, in order to become New Yorkers, in order to be productive adults to get the health care they need to be they need, they need support in developing skills to get jobs," said the Rev. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of New York. "That is the area where New York state has a lot to contribute."
He continued, "We have estimated that by investing under $4,000 in each of these kids, we think you can create thousands of new productive New Yorkers who are going to be contributing taxpayers to New York state. It means $25 million a year will make a major contribution to providing human services for them, for their families, and for future of New York state."
The Safe Passage Project, a not-for-profit organization created to address the unmet legal needs of indigent immigrant youth living in New York, found that 90 percent of these children who are in New York state are eligible for some type of immigration relief.
"It is nearly impossible for children to represent themselves in immigration proceedings. These children have very difficult stories to tell, and without an attorney, it is almost impossible for them to be able to describe their very difficult experiences and the trauma that they faced. Many of these children may face return to their countries if they do not have attorneys," said Megan McKenna, communication and advocacy director of Kids In Need of Defense.
According to Assembly members at the hearing, this year alone, it is expected that 90,000 youth will be detained and face deportation proceedings, which can take up to four years or more. Many are residing either temporarily or permanently in New York state during this time. While immigration and deportation proceedings are federal issues, many youth must go before family courts, and some become charges of the state.
According to Lenni Benson, director of New York Law School Safe Project, there is a serious shortage of attorneys and advocates to work on behalf of the children.
"We believe the state could help by stepping up and thinking of creative ways to providing block grants to the communities most affected," Benson said. "Perhaps, it means giving schools resources for additional social workers who can be trained by legal service providers to help them understand the process. Maybe it means creating more language access resources."
She continued, "This is not something just an immigration lawyer can do. You need have a partnership between the family courts and the family panel for lawyers, family attorneys skilled and advice and support from immigration experts."
Eve Stotland, director of The Door, believes legal counsel and more resources for the family courts are two things that could be provided by New York state to ensure the safety of immigrant children. The Door is an organization that serves more than 11,000 young people from all over New York City, with a wide range of services including reproductive health care and education, mental health counseling and legal assistance.
"These children need everything. They need loving families, schools, social workers, and counselors but they need lawyers first," Stotland said. "If we don't get these children lawyers, they have two choices. One is they will be forcibly removed to the country which they fled and their second choice is stop appearing for court and go underground and live their lives in hiding. This will render them undocumented probably for the rest of their lives."
"The issue is really framed by the convergence of the three different factors," said Michael Cooper, a member of New York City Bar Association's Immigration and Nationality Law Committee. "The first is the extreme complexity of the United States immigration law, the second is the limited competency of the children to represent themselves in immigration court proceedings and the third is the grave consequence associated with erroneous factual or legal findings, which under the current conditions in Mexico and central America, mean for many children the very real prospect of persecution, torture and even death at hands of brutal gang members."
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of Immigrant Affairs in the New York City Mayor's Office, said the de Blasio Administration is trying to connect the children with resources. The mayor's office has worked closely with the Department of Education to ensure that no barriers exist to prevent undocumented children from attending school. In addition, the Department of Education is also performing an analysis of administrative data to identify schools with the largest number of immigrant children to help prepare their staff to respond accordingly.
"Despite several of New York City schools are now experiencing dramatic increases of unaccompanied minor students, some unaccompanied minor students will leave schools before graduating in order to work full time which could negatively impact accountability data," said Elizabeth Olsson, manager of Policy and Advocacy at Internationals Network for Public Schools.
"Some of these students have told to schools they only enrolled because the judges told them they are required to go to school and they have said as soon as they will turn 18, they will leave schools to work full time to pay their debts to coyotes," Olsson said.
The schools need additional resources to ensure that these students receive the support and services that they need to meet New York state's rigorous academic standards. Olsson says New York state should consider allocating more resources such as additional social workers or guidance counselors to schools with significant unaccompanied minor populations in order to provide students access to the instructional, emotional and social supports they require.
