AI Justice, along with longtime partner, FIU’s Immigrant Children’s Justice Legal Clinic, submitted a brief to the Juvenile Court in the Eleventh Circuit on behalf of two immigrant children who had suffered terrible abuse and threats by their father and other family members and whose lives were at risk if returned to their home country of Guatemala. The brief, a response to an Order issued by a Juvenile Court Judge, addressed various discrete legal issues specific to immigrant children eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status seeking protection from the Juvenile Court.
In a detailed, 30-page response clarifying the validity of these cases, the Judge found that abused, abandoned, or neglected immigrant children should be adjudicated dependent by the Juvenile Court and be entitled to the same findings and protections by the Court despite their immigration status or where the abuse or abandonment occurred.