Hundreds of children in San Diego could lose lawyers for immigration proceedings
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer is proposing an expansion of legal protections for unaccompanied minors after the Trump administration cut funding for the unaccompanied children program earlier this year.
“I think we can all imagine how incredibly confusing and difficult it would be for a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old to go to court and try to explain to the judge their immigration status,” said Lawson-Remer.
- Watch the report by FOX 5/KUSI's Delaney White in the video player above.
A court-ordered stopgap set to expire on Sept. 30 is temporarily keeping the program in place.
“After Sept. 30, unless we act here in San Diego, even toddlers will be forced to place a judge and a federal prosecutor completely alone,” said Lawson-Remer.
In San Diego, approximately 300 kids could be impacted. In order to ensure that doesn’t happen, Lawson-Remer is proposing expanding eligibility for San Diego County’s immigrant legal defense program.
“The data shows that with an attorney, people prevail about two-thirds of the time, but without one, success drops to just 5%,” said Lawson-Remer.
Michael Garcia, director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program, says if approved, this proposal would allow them to represent all children regardless of custody status.
“If due process is the point, okay, there is no more lack of due process in immigration court than when a child is sitting there answering questions from a judge or from a government attorney,” Garcia said.
FOX 5/KUSI reached out to all the county supervisors for comment, but they deferred to Lawson-Remer, who says she hopes this will pass unanimously.
“The notion that you would have children in court who could then get sent thousands and thousands of miles away and then have no one to speak for them, I can’t imagine how anyone would think that that was okay,” said Lawson-Remer.
The board will vote on the expansion proposal on Sept. 9.
