Katie Chadliev & Stacy Newman† | 3 Regent J. Glob. Just. & Pub. Pol. 249

INTRODUCTION

Historically, the United States has been a popular destination country for international immigrants, and the topic of immigration tends to be controversial in the American political landscape. In the summer of 2014, however, a special group of immigrants dominated the national conversation: unaccompanied children from Latin America. 1 Headlines from national news outlines reported on the vitriolic issue of how the U.S. should respond to the perceived increase in unaccompanied children crossing the border. President Obama addressed the issue, stating that although the actual number of children crossing the border was at an all-time low,2 he would still implement a program to provide unaccompanied migrant children representation through the creation and funding of AmeriCorps.3 Created in June of 2014, the organization is funded by two million dollars in grants and “provide[s] one-hundred lawyers and paralegals in twenty-eight states” to represent unaccompanied immigrants “under the age of sixteen in removal proceedings.”4

Providing legal representation in a system where there is no right to counsel is an important first step, 5 but the challenges of representing unaccompanied child immigrants demands a multidisciplinary approach. Recently, the rise of “Trauma-Informed Care” (TIC) in the medical and social services field has revolutionized services for children, and its philosophy and methods are directly transferrable to those engaged in “legal care.” 6 Through a wedding of TIC and zealous legal representation, a child’s journey through the legal system need not be as traumatic as the journey to the United States.

I. BACKGROUND OF LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

The United States is often referred to as “a nation of immigrants,”7 and according to the Migration Policy Institute, the U.S. is the number one destination for immigrants. 8 In fact, according to the Census Bureau, the percentage of the United States population that is foreign born has been on the rise since the 1970s and reached 12.9% in 2010.9 The Census Bureau also reports that the majority of foreign born people in America are from Mexico and Central America. 10

The top Latin American source countries for immigration to the United States are Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala,11 all countries with high levels of political and economic insecurity. 12 Many explanations are circulated for the high number of immigrants from these countries, and each source country has different “push” factors. However, a few themes seem to emerge from every analysis: dangerous or economically disadvantageous conditions in the home country, the goal of family reunification, and relative proximity to the United States.13

Although Latin American immigration to the United States has been on the rise for decades, the summer of 2014 highlighted a perceived surge of unaccompanied immigrant children. 14 The issue came to the forefront of American news when townspeople in Arizona and California gathered to protest and turn away buses of immigrant children. 15 In California, the buses were leaving overcrowded Texas detention centers and the children were in the care of older relatives, but in Arizona, the buses transported unaccompanied immigrant children exclusively. 16 Arizona protestors bearing signs with phrases like, “no open borders” and blocking buses full of children provoked outrage and added a new wrinkle to the immigration debate:17 how should the United States deal with unaccompanied children crossing the border?

† Student attorneys in the Thomas and Mack Immigration Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law. Many thanks to Professor Fatma Marouf for her fearless leadership of the Clinic and her invaluable contributions to this article, which started out as a project for her immigration class.
1 PETER J. MEYER ET AL ., CONG . RESEARCH SERV., UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN FROM CENTRAL AMERICA : FOREIGN POLICY CONSIDERATIONS, 1 (2016), http://trac.syr.edu/Immigration/library/P10211.pdf; see e.g. Sonia Nazario, The Children of the Drug Wars: A Refugee, Not an Immigration Crisis, N.Y. TIMES (July 11, 2014), https://www.nytimes.com/2 014/07/13/opinion/sunday/a-refugee-crisis-not-an-immigration-crisis.html; Lauren Fox, Anti-Immigrant Hate Coming From Everyday Americans, U.S. NEWS (July 24, 2014), http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/24/anti-immigrant-hate-coming-from-everyday-americans.
2 President Barak Obama, Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Immigration (Nov. 20, 2014).
3 Erin B. Corcoran, Getting Kids Out of Harm’s Way: The United States’ Obligation to Operationalize the Best Interest of the Child Principle for Unaccompanied Minors, 47 C ONN. L. REV . ONLINE 1, 5 (2014).
4 Id.
5 A recent survey of similarly-situated immigrants in removal proceedings revealed that immigrants with legal representation enjoyed odds fifteen times greater than immigrants without representation. Ingrid V. Eagly & Steven Shafer, A National Study of Access to Counsel in Immigration Court, 164 U. P A . L. REV . 1, 2 (2015). Recently, New York became the first state to provide all immigrants in removal proceedings with an attorney. New York State Becomes First in Nation to Provide Lawyers for All Immigrants Detained and Facing Deportation, VERA INST. JUST., https://www.vera.org/newsroom/press-releases/new-york-state-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-provide-lawyers-for-all-immigrants-detained-and-facing-deportation (Apr. 7, 2017).
6 Carly B. Dierkhising, et al., Trauma-Informed Justice Roundtable: Current Issues and New Directions in Creating Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice Systems, NAT’L CHILD TRAUMATIC S TRESS NETWORK (Aug. 2013), http://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/a
ssets/pdfs/jj_trauma_brief_introduction_final.pdf.
7 See, e.g., Kay Deaux, A Nation of Immigrants: Living Our Legacy, 62 J. SOC. ISSUES 633, 634 (2006). This phrase was popularized by John F. Kennedy’s book of the same name. Id.; JOHN F. KENNEDY, A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS (1959).
8 Top 25 Destinations of International Migrants, M IGRATION POL’Y INST. (2015), http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/international-migration-statistics.
9 Steven A. Camarota, Ctr. for Immigration Studies, Immigrants in the United States: A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population 9 (2012),
http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2012/immigrants-in-the-united-states-2012.pdf; The Foreign–Born Population in the United States, U.S. Census Bureau 3, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pdf/cspan_fb_slides.pdf (last visited Mar. 18, 2017).
10 The Foreign–Born Population in the United States, supra note 9, at 6; CAMAROTA, supra note 9, at 16.
11 Jie Zong & Jeanne Batalova, Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States, MIGRATION POL’Y INST. (Apr. 14, 2016), http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states.
12 See U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, MISSION TO CENTRAL AMERICA : THE FLIGHT OF UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN TO THE UNITED STATES 2, 8 (Nov. 2013), http://www.usccb.org/about/migration-policy/upload/Mission-To-Central-America-FINAL-2.pdf; Jie Zong & Jeanne Batalova, Central American Immigrants in the United States, MIGRATION POL’Y INST. (Sept. 2, 2015), http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-american-immigrants-united-states.
13 U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, supra note 12; see also Gordon H. Hanson & Craig McIntosh, Birth Rates and Border Crossings: Latin American Migration to the US, Canada, Spain, and the UK, 122 ECON . J. 707, 708–09, 716 (2012); Jesus Rios & Steve Crabtree, One in Four Latin Americans Wishes to Emigrate, GALLUP (Jan. 21, 2008), http://www.gallup.com/poll/103837/one-four-latin-americans-wishes-emigrate.aspx.
14 PETER J. MEYER ET AL., supra note 1.
15 Michael Martinez et al, Growing Protests Over Where to Shelter Immigrant Children Hits Arizona, CNN (July 16, 2014), http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/15/us/arizona-immigrant-children/; Michael Martinez & Holly Yan, Showdown: California Town Turns Away Buses of Detained Immigrants, CNN (last updated July 3, 2014), http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/us/california-immigrant-transfers/.
16 See sources cited supra note 15.
17 See Martinez et al., supra note 15. Some protestors also distributed flyers which read “[w]e are being invaded!” Id.