 So I'm Deborah Gonzales, I'm the Director of the Immigration here at Roger Williams University. I also am an alum from the university and our panel is going to be a little different and hopefully will keep you awake because we're going to do a little dance while we're here as opposed to us going up individually. So I'm here today with Magistrate Charles Levesque who was appointed to the Rhode Island Family Court in June of 2012. Prior to that he was in private practice and was the assistant town solicitor for the town of Portsmouth. He was also the former state senator for the 11th district which represents Portsmouth and the town of Bristol from 2005 and 2010. And before that he was the state representative for the 93rd district from 1993 to 2003. He's a former member of the Portsmouth Town Council from 89 to 93, graduated from Loyola University School of Law and also URI. By his side is my esteemed colleague Andine Galvez Sniffen who practices primarily in the area of immigration law specifically family based immigration. She's a graduate of Brown University and has worked as the legal director of the immigration unit of a non-profit agency in Fall River, ILEAP. In that capacity for over 11 years Andine represented indigent immigrants from the southeastern Massachusetts region. She also trained and mentored several law students and is an adjunct faculty member here of Roger Williams University. And in 2007 she was one of the first attorneys to respond to the workplace raid that had occurred in New Bedford where 361 undocumented immigrant workers were arrested and detained during that raid. She worked with several other attorneys to get these immigrants released. Andine now practices immigration law. She's been doing it for over 20 years. She's in private practice in New Bedford where she has her office. So our panel today is going to be talking more about the nitty-gritty of special immigrant juvenile status, right? What Lenny has alluded to and talked a little bit about. And it's great to be the last panel because we can talk a little bit less and kind of give you a little bit more because other folks have already talked a lot about these things. But special immigrant juvenile is a form of relief that is granted to unaccompanied minors or to children who live in the United States who've been abandoned, abused, and neglected by their parents. Federal law allows these children who have entered unaccompanied by adult to obtain lawful permanent residence by virtue of special immigrant juvenile status. And this was granted to them really with the Immigration Act of 1999 but really only became useful for many practitioners with the passing of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, otherwise known as the TVPRA which expanded the definition of special immigrant juveniles to allow children who've been declared on a court or appointed by an individual whose reunification with one of both parents is not viable due to abandonment, abuse, and neglect. And there is a statute on it. So I'll give you the statute. This is the U.S.C. 1101A27J which defines a special immigrant as one who's been declared dependent on a juvenile court or placed in the custody of an agency or an individual appointed by a juvenile court in whose reunification with one or both parents is not viable due to abandonment, abuse, or neglect. And for whom the court has determined that it would not be in the best interest of the juvenile to return to the foreign nationals juvenile home in the order of dependency and custody must be issued by a state court having jurisdiction over the minor. This guy right here. And so today we're going to talk about what does that entail? What does that look like for us in Rhode Island and some of our neighboring states very specifically Massachusetts and how different they are, right? And how here we are talking about federal law and we all think that this applies to everybody equally. But the truth of the matter is when you're talking about special immigrant juvenile status as Lenny has already stated, the first step, one of the first steps is to go into family court to obtain this predicate order of abandonment, abuse, or neglect before this child's ever able to go before the USCIS and say, hey, I've been abandoned, abused, or neglected and I deserve to be classified as that kind of a person. And every state really has their own jurisdictional laws, standing laws, age requirements. And so that's what we're going to talk about today a little bit. This is going to be more of a conversation versus just up and speaking. So let me talk. Please. So when Lenny was talking, Lenny or Lonnie, when you were talking it was kind of like, you know, as somebody refers kind of to me in one of those boxes that you were seeking to avoid, I do take that kind of personally. And then I realize that it is to an extent, as they used to say, the chancellor's foot. It is a question of who you appear before all the way along. The standards, people talked about prostitution, prostitutional discretion. The standards are greatly at variance and that is a really unfortunate thing. Although if you're appearing before me, I think you got lucky. If you appear before somebody else, you might not. So it's difficult for me to be harsh on it. There's a degree to which we're proselytizing a little bit. We're looking for people who would be interested in this area of law. And the discussion today has been very interesting to me as a law student as I still am. But I want to tell you a little bit just about Professor Gonzalez has just talked about. My court, I have kids come in pretty much with an adult. These kids are as cute as buttons. And I'm actually going to mention to you, my court is every Wednesday at Kent County. I normally have two to three to four a day and I would be more than willing, and I think all the attorneys who practice there would be more than willing to have you come in and observe. What do these kids have to do when they're in front of me? Well, they have to prove they're under 18 because the jurisdiction of the Rhode Island family court only applies to when you're up to 18. As Professor Gonzalez will say, we sometimes go around that a little bit, but we're very careful because I don't want the gentleman who's looking into fraud to be coming at my doorstep. And I do. I want it to be a legitimate process because really, as long as it continues to be a legitimate process, they should never look behind it at all. And so I don't want me to be at all a hindrance to the process going on. They have to tell me they're over 18. They have to tell me, and I love it because sometimes I have 12-year-olds, little girls sitting there going, and I have to ask them, have you ever been a member of a gang? Have you ever been, are you wanted or have you ever been involved in any criminal activity? Are you married? Do you have any children? Now, my friend Han's always there, says to the people, I have to ask this question because of that guy over there. They come in and they're somewhat intimidated because they haven't been in the courtroom before and the communities they come from, for the most part, the judicial system and the legal system, it's not considered a friend because it's not a friend. And then they have to tell me their story. And I'm not saying to you that I look forward to it and I say, wow, we got 10 minutes. And you'll get to say something. But I sometimes feel like an awful boy here as I sit and listen to these stories because they are so compelling. They are so dramatic. They are so interesting. They're hotening in a way. So they tell me the story. They tell me the story of their life, primarily here in Guatemala, but also El Salvador, some Mexico. They talk to me about the abject poverty of the place they come. They talk to me about the violence and the place they come from. They talk about the problem of alcoholism which is very frequently connected with poverty and the poverty of these people. Some are indigenous people. They talk to me about the violence from other people in their community. There was a discussion, why don't they go to Guatemala? Why don't they go to El Salvador? One of the things you have to... They don't like each other like the Germans and the Irish and the French didn't like each other. They don't have a monolithic group when they come to this country. But by and large, they are distinct groups, distinct personalities. But they come to El Norte. They come to North America. They come to the United States and Rhode Island. I want you to think about the courage that it takes because some of these kids are 14, 15, 16. The courage it takes to leave your home one day with primarily strangers. Usually somebody has come up with the money to hire a coyote. Somebody who's going to transport. Somebody you don't know. And as was pointed out, a lot of them eventually will commit violence against the people that they are transporting. Particularly I had a woman, a girl, just the other day, who got raped along on the transit. I have to have them tell these stories because I have to find that they have either been abandoned and neglected or abused by their parent. What does that mean, Judge? And I take the position that it... Well, quite literally, means what I say it means. But... Usually I find... Here's the thing. In Rhode Island, I do not know that I could say the abject poverty of somebody not being able to support somebody's educational needs. Probably I would not be able to say it's neglectful. And by the way, if you're doing family court law, that might lead to a termination of parental rights. I'm not talking about something like that, which is extremely high level. I'm talking about neglectful, which can be unintentional, and sometimes actually in my decision, I say specifically. Because I have a child that's just really ratted out their mom or dad, or both. And said that they weren't able to do this, they weren't able to do this, they weren't able to protect me from the gangs that provide for my education or even feed me. And I have to say it's not a question of their own. It is not a question of them not loving you. And again, I think we were talking at lunch, and I said, think of the love of a parent that's willing to say to a child, I can't support you here. Go ahead. Go to America. Try to go to America with all the dangers inherent therein. If you get there, you have an uncle up in Providence that might be able to take you in. And the courage of a person to say that, and the courage of a kid to do it. Okay. I find in the collective that sometimes it's not really an issue, abandonment. Sometimes I have parents that split, just one of them or the other leads. All right. It's not particularly unusual for their community, it's not particularly unusual for our community. I mean, whatever place you want to be in, husband, father, whatever, with a degree of frequency, and sometimes it's the question of the month. Much less abuse, but there is cases of abuse and really disheartening that somebody in particular, because I'm looking at the mother and father would do that to a child. I have death. People died from, died beyond, any number of it. I take a perspective of Rhode Island. That is, I am putting, no, I'm not looking at what is New Guatemala, which I would not know in any event. There's no conflict of law type idea. I say, all right, in Rhode Island we call it neglect. I make that determination. What about the concept that the abuse or the abandonment or the neglect isn't happening in Rhode Island? So what you're doing essentially is taking Rhode Island law and imposing it into Guatemala and El Salvador and right in Northern Triangle, which as Leti has stated before, where most of the kids are coming from. We're imposing our laws and what are your thoughts about that? Again, you know, one of the things as I said, I am a Rhode Island judge ruling on Rhode Island matters. However, the federal law basically controls and it asks me to look at several aspects and these are the aspects it looks at and it says specifically not that it's timely right now but they have been a subject of abuse or neglect or abandonment. I don't apply it. One of the determinations I have to make is that the person they walk through the door is a fit and proper person to continue having that child. So I am making no representations other than the fact that I do need to know information about the petition of the person who comes in with the child that this person is a fit and proper person to have that child in the future. There is that problem anytime you are dealing with another nation another culture as to whether or not you are imposing values that you have upon that. Yes, I am imposing the values of Rhode Island Family Court judge given the instructions I have from the federal government to a particular set of facts that appears before me. If they change those, I probably have to change how I do it but that's the way I do. The other thing I do is you have been there I normally default the other party we do serve them we are careful to avoid anything that might appear to be a sham or a fraud but oftentimes we get a response from them that says I am not going to show up I am ceding my defense if you will to the court I am doing but I default them because now I have no one but this place and if they put on if you will the prima facie, the case in chief whatever statement is made to you then I feel I have a right an obligation to grant that request. So you have posed a lot of interesting questions one of which you have talked about jurisdiction slightly where you stated that jurisdiction attaches up until the age of 18 but you brought up this notion of standing and burdens of proof just ever so slightly and I would like to talk a little bit more about that I kind of want to get on Dean into this conversation as well because there are differences between Rhode Island and our neighboring state Massachusetts which is really just a hop away and so I would like to first talk about standing so my first question to you Judge and you know on Dean please feel free to kind of jump in don't wait for me to call on you we are not law school or anything how does someone gain standing can the minor him or herself go to court and file this petition and if not what is the mechanism by which this case even makes its way to family court currently the petitioner is considered the juvenile although it's kind of interesting to me because traditionally it was not that so I normally take it's the person who has come in on behalf of the juvenile as the petitioner the requirement is that person has to live in the state of Rhode Island usually if it's a not the mother or father then they see a guardianship from one of the probate courts a relatively I think simple I haven't done in a while document to obtain and then they come in and I describe them as guardian or next friend or one of them has a mother and it's against the father or father against the mother but if they're within the state of Rhode Island if the child is within the state of Rhode Island even under Rhode Island law I have the authority to adjudicate the questions of custody and placement of that child for the purposes of Rhode Island and Andine I'm going to let you speak because I want to get to how it is that somebody obtains guardianship so Lenny alluded to the fact in her fabulous graph right that the child you know first goes through the CDP and then they go through the ORR and then they're released to the family and then they go to the family court and the immigration court and USCIS and I can't say it as fast as you did and as fabulously as you did and Lenny but in Rhode Island there's another box that goes there which is probate court right and that requires that child to serve the parents in the home country if there is in some other mechanism of doing that and you know due to the the nature of how the ORR system works usually I don't have to serve a parent in probate court because I have a power of attorney but I don't have that same luxury once we're in family court right when I'm in family court I need to find a way in Rhode Island to serve to get papers to that parent in the Hills of Guatemala to have that parent sign that paperwork in front of a notary public and provide me with a copy of that preferably the original but if not hopefully a faxed or an emailed copy as soon as I have an order for alternate service so mind you now not only does this child have to go to the CBP the ORR they're going to go to probate court then family court then USCIS then immigration court before they ever see a green card on Dean how is that different in mass or is it in Massachusetts we have joint jurisdiction probate and family court are all one in the same and so I represent the child that's seeking the status I don't represent the would-be guardian so it is essentially a self-petition because then there would be conflict of interest issues and so the child still has to go through that process guardianship there are forms already laid out that we need to serve on the parents so we still have to go through that process the child through their attorney serves these papers on the parents they sign a consent basically a consent to guardianship that the court is going to appoint a guardian for this child because they're here unaccompanied so that's how you get basically an unaccompanied child whether so does the court actually appoint a guardian or is this the friend of the family as we've stated before well the child will propose a guardian so it will be generally a friend of the family another family member an older brother and older sister that the child has designated and the court will go along with it so that's interesting right so is the child then not considered to have been emancipated by virtue of the fact that they're filing their own condition no not in Massachusetts and then up until what age does jurisdiction attach? in Massachusetts only as recently as 2016 it was the same as Rhode Island up until the age of 18 but in 2016 SJC in Massachusetts came out with a case for Sinos vs. Cabar in which they extended probate court jurisdiction to cover up until the age of 21 so that's equity jurisdiction they found that there was this gap between what the federal statute laid out as relief for children and the circumstances and the access to the state court through which they could get it and they could only get it through state court up until 18 and yet the relief was still available to them up until just before 21 and so through its equity jurisdiction that's how they rationalized that they would extend equity jurisdiction up to 21 so now it's and there's no longer need for guardianship when you go from 18 to 21 it's essentially just a request for declaratory relief any such thing in Rhode Island judge? no I knew the answer to that I just wanted you to say it so Judge a second you alluded briefly as to what it is that these minors have to prove but I'd like for you if you would for our audience for those of us for those who don't actually go before you or haven't been yet to talk a little bit more about how it is that you are able to make a finding of fact of abandonment abuse or neglect in these cases it's a situation in which the other party has been defaulted so I am relying essentially on one person's testimony as to the occurrences actually and I was mentioning to Attorney Bremer before because one of the attorneys in his office it is a tendency to fall in love with your client and by the way you will file that in almost any practice that you do your first meeting you may realize they're a deranged being person but after you sit with the person for a while you actually begin to care about them and like them well his co-counsel often comes in and he doesn't seem to want to get them to say anything bad about their family and a lot of times these kids are reluctant to say something bad about that they're talking about their mother they're talking about their father but I need that information in order to make my decision but once they testify to it I mean I will admit I will oblige you to look at them and determine whether or not I feel there's any you know, subterfuge, any falseness anything that indicates that they're not telling me entirely the truth I've never even come close to that with any of the kids that have been appearing before me and by the way I have done both criminal when I used to practice criminal juvenile work and I've sat on the bench for it and I actually tell you that almost all kids lie because it's survival they just do people who tell you that kids are honest aren't being accurate but for the most part they're just trying to survive it's a very difficult thing being a kid and when they come before me though they're just telling me their life story and they may have been assisted by the attorney because there's also often particularly I will say Professor Gonzalez also usually both a a very strong memo and some very good affidavits and I review those beforehand but I want to hear their testimony and basically I know they're telling me what happened that's a difference in Massachusetts there is no need for testimony so essentially it's the attorney who's drafting the affidavit with their client who is getting the client's story and obviously trying to get an honest story but I believe it would be easier for the child to tell their attorney knowing their attorney is working in their best interest than a neutral fat finder like a judge on the bench so they don't have to go through direct examination once they're in the courtroom and I can tell them that straight from the bat you need to tell me now this is the only thing the judge is going to rely on is your affidavit so that's all they realized Professor Gonzalez will tell you that I have a lot of different stupid little things I do when the kids come in because I realize they're uncomfortable they're not stupid but I will, I tell them to breathe I even do I remember Spanish won the first page so I do know how to say que paso that's about the extent of it you get to page 2 and I'm really treading water and I do and usually there's something and it's funny to me how a joke in another language or another culture is always kind of an interesting thing but usually I'll make fun of the kids hair what's something about it just to laugh you know the father came in the other day all the kids got hair coming so I make a joke about that usually that tends to relax them a little bit and so that I think they feel comfortable because I am assuming that they're not going to be comfortable I can't imagine that they would be comfortable so I clearly judge when we're in your courtroom and I don't know on Dean, you said that when in Massachusetts this is being filed in probate and family court but not a juvenile court but in Rhode Island it's filed under the juvenile calendar so you have the family court in Rhode Island it has various other courts within it the juvenile calendar being one of them and it's I practice in Rhode Island I've never practiced anywhere else I don't practice in Massachusetts so it was interesting to me to hear and of course as you've heard so far the differences between Massachusetts and Rhode Island are significant and then just recently, really as recently as September, I learned of all of the horrific things that are going on in family court in Florida and I was sitting with a colleague, Bertie Perlmutter who's writing a fabulous article on judges behaving badly no offense judge, I don't think he's doing enough yet but you know he cited in this paper that he's writing about this case that he handled himself BRCM which was a special immigrant juvenile petition that was filed I want to say it was Miami although it was Miami I believe where the court had an 8 minute hearing of which there were absolutely no questions no direct exam dust of the child but for the attorney giving the court a brief synopsis of what the case was about were in the judge and the appellate court who affirmed that just said that the minor was truly not abused or neglected under Florida law and that the sponsor was providing all the needs that the child needed and that there really was no purpose for filing this special petition of dependency which I guess is a petition for dependency and in some instances really we don't call it that in Rhode Island but it still is a petition for dependency because we're asking the court for dependency of either the parent or the guardian and I wanted to hear Your Honor's comments about this notion of requiring services because in Florida they say well we're not going to grant these because you're not really asking us for services and so I'd like to hear from Your Honor as to what your thoughts about that are My decisions are described as custody and special immigration finding so really it is a hybrid the federal government has set out the standards and I basically apply those standards so that it is custody now as part of my decision and by the way it is four o'clock and I won't hold it against any of you who leave unless you do so in a group I do make a statement that the child would be entitled to services now basically I don't know if you are in this country or in this state you have a right to go to school and as Mayor Laws has said the law is very clear the law is very clear you have to be let into a hospital if you in fact go to a hospital I mean that's a kind of a disaster that's the highest cost available but you don't have a right to go to a general practitioner but if you go to a hospital they have to let you in so the other services that we're talking about I mean if it's food stamps it's kind of like do we as a nation declare war on children and say we're not going to feed you no one of the things I have been troubled by lately is that if I say you're entitled to services and if I truly believe that what you have described to me is so traumatic and I think it is shouldn't you be able to get counseling shouldn't you be able to get some psychiatric help especially because our portion of this is and children we know that children subject to trauma you can see their life problems go up almost per trauma if you abandon whatever like that until living alcoholism, drug addiction disobedience, missing school cancer early death all of those go up per trauma so I do think to myself there's no services but by and large this is not a community that's seeking services they do go to school and they are very proud of going to school and actually that part of the testimony really is also very fascinating again as a boy year they kind of light up they have come here because they have desire and ambition and I don't mean that in a bad way you know sometimes use they just want to be able to do something and they want to be nurses and doctors and lawyers and so when that part of the testimony comes up and it's like what's your favorite subject English great but it's just so exciting and I will tell you just one story when they say their favorite subject is English I tell them to learn English the way I did which was to watch morning cartoons and read comic books and learn English so in gathering then these facts that are gathered whether or not they're asking for services or custody I'm curious to know what is in that order what is it that that is put in the order and I'd like to hear in the contrast of both states and then on Dean I'd like to hear from you as to why is the order important so I'll go first because you're going to tell you what it's for I do a decision from the bench I am actually a very facile type if you can't type learn to type because it's a great thing to be able to do so I type but basically in my decision I have all those predicates and that's almost it I mean it's almost like you know you're normal divorce thing it's like you were here, you're underage you are not a criminal you're not married, you have no kids it's in the best interest of this child not to go they can't be reunited with their parent or spouse or father or mother it's not in their interest to go back to the native country and it is in their best interest to stay here in the middle I will type in some specific facts as has been brought to me now I do that decision but almost all the practitioners who appear before me then come back with an order and I put order to enter and that order lays it out exactly how they've been asked to lay it out by the immigration folks they're going to appear before and so usually though it's easy for me to know either half the time I remember or just to look at it and say yeah those are the findings I made and I signed okay and then they take that order in Massachusetts it's pretty much the same thing except the judges have never given a written order in the case that I've gone before and I don't and now I just practice in Bristol County it may be different in Suffolk County it may be different out in western Massachusetts but the judges in Bristol County do not write their own orders we need to prepare the findings for them and it's basically the same thing lay out the elements needed to establish that so in Massachusetts are you laying out because I know in Rhode Island when I I know when I prepare an order the findings were from the written order written by Judge LeVec but I will generally type up in very with a lot of detail as to what the findings of fact were right under 18 not married, mom abandoned because of X, Y and Z, dad was abusive because of A, B and C whatever the case may be and that's very detailed detailed in the order is that the same for orders that are going in mass? the orders go with the entire packet so I'm going based on what this child has told me the judge hasn't even heard from the child hasn't even received the case yet they're getting a petition with that petition proposed findings and the judges never change those proposed findings and in those proposed findings I'm doing everything that you're saying putting in details about the abuse, abandonment and neglect and then marry the 8 under 18 or whatever all of that is pretty standard what CIS really wants to look at and what they can come back at you with are the situations of how come why is this decision not more on point with respect to the abuse abandonment or neglect and they can try and reverse the decision in that way or deny your status and reverse the decision two things about that some attorneys have asked me because it's not uncommon it is very uncommon but it's not impossible for somebody to say I've prepared an order and asked me to respond immediately and sign the order and usually a quick review they have proven their case exactly so I have signed it but I do actually kind of prefer the idea that they actually listen to my decision, went home came back even if it's 15 minutes later and one of the reasons I do a decision is because if in fact and quite frankly part of me doesn't think they have a right to look behind my decision they've given me this authority in principles of a stop-all or a residue to counter or even full faith in credit would suggest that if you've given me this authority I should be able to make the decision and then you just take it if you want to find something different fine but what I've said should be fine but you know with these people I don't want there's too important for the people who are appearing before me to have this go smoothly so I'm just doing everything I can to make sure that if they look behind what we've done they will say everything looks appropriate fine well done and so they will move on so I think then it's appropriate for us to move on to our the real immigration part of this right because up until now we've only been talking about family law right and it's interesting that as immigration practitioners we all have to become well versed in family law and understanding what that process takes but you know we've now talked about obtaining a predicate order of abandonment abuse or neglect which sounds a whole lot easier than it actually is especially and we're really lucky in Rhode Island I think but especially in states like Florida where it may not be as easy but then we have a predicate order and so what what do we do with all that on Dean okay well at that point you then file this form which is actually the I-360 it's again a self petition where it isn't that somebody is asking for this immigrant juvenile to have a certain status it's that immigrant juvenile themselves that's petitioning CIS Citizenship Immigration Services for their status based on the predicate order that they obtained from the family court from the family court and you fill out form you submit it along with the predicate order that you have and any supporting documents I usually include any country conditions to show that this is not you know aside from the judge's decision here is further evidence that backs up the judge's decision with respect to country conditions why it's not in the best interest of the child to be returned in many cases where there has been abuse and I have a police report from another country I will also submit that as well to CIS so that because they are going to be looking at you know just this predicate order it's good to supply some support for that predicate order and so what is the minor because that sounds like it's just a form that's being filled down submitted what does the minor have to go through once it is filed and there is no filing fee for minors once it is filed the minor has to be prepared to at some point certainly be finger printed if they're over 14 if they're 14 or older and then subject to 10 interview that interview is just in order to get the SIJ status that interview will be with the CIS officer in the local offices in Rhode Island it would be Johnston and in Massachusetts it would be up in Boston what does that interview look like that interview will it depends it really depends on the officer up in Boston they're pretty they go back and forth but they can ask questions like have you ever been a gang member do you have any tattoos are you in school how much English do you speak how come you don't speak enough English if you came here because you wanted to go to school let me see your report card and so those I think are questions that in my mind tend to go outside of what they need to establish in order to get the status but at the same time they have a lot of leeway with these questions they basically they're the ones that are going to determine whether or not this child gets this protective status I know that as I've attended interviews in Johnston particularly in the Johnston office which is where I practice primarily I've had many minors who have been abused during their interviews being what I would consider even almost harassed over their family members status so who are you living with what is their name, what is their status how do they come in, are they married do they have kids and so you tell the officer well that's not what we're here to do and the officer in many instances has threatened me and my client who's sitting there to say we're going to stop this interview and I'm not going to adjudicate this petition if you don't allow me to ask these questions and it's really the abuse of power from what I've experienced at least in the Johnston office where clearly the line of questioning that is being asked on a petition to classify the minor as a special immigrant juvenile based on predicate orders that have been granted by the court goes well beyond anything that has anything to do with being classified as a special immigrant juvenile and as advocates I know for me and I know Hans and Hilary feel the same way I'm sure you do too on Dean but we really have in Denise excuse me we've really been having a push back and say no no no no you don't want to give me a decision break don't because I'm going to file a district court that you didn't want to give me a decision but it's really been interestingly in Massachusetts and Boston there are certain officers who won't go that far I've started to see officers go that far and what's interesting also is initially when you used to be able to file a simultaneous petition for SIJ status as well as for your green card based on that status those questions were probably more justified because those are questions that you would ask someone who wants to become a legal permanent resident and I do still get those questions when they get to that next phase it's just that right now you can no longer file those two applications concurrently and so therefore the questions shouldn't come up at this stage either and yet they are starting to in Boston at least I think as an American nothing bothers me more than the imposition of arbitrary authority nothing I mean it really is and I used to deal with young kids and we would talk about what's happening on the street and I would tell them look there's an argument you cannot win you cannot win an argument with a cop on the street at night and by the way the cop does not want to know your view of the Constitution alright and all of you who are going to be down at aid tonight remember that the cop doesn't want to know your view of the Constitution or whether or not he has any right to search your car and the other problem when you're an advocate in this situation it may go up your back a mile that they are treating your client this way but you need their signature and it really kills me that it can be so arbitrary and one of the things that I would suggest to you in my portion of closing here because it's very and I appreciate your patience is that one of the young women mentioned that we have to accept that this is the view of a country right now that 40% don't trust Muslims and everything no we don't we shouldn't accept it it's not true alright anything that's not accurate is not true then we should not accept it we have to have the conversation though and I don't think that conversation can be you're an idiot you're a bigot you're a jerk that conversation has been what you have just said is not true communities with large number of immigrants have less crime communities of this type are not that communities that have more immigrants have a higher standard of living all those things because one of the things that Mr. Trump perfectly did was not the question he was himself I believe espousing bigger than things but what he really related on was fairness that the traditional communities the white community was being treated unfairly by all of these people coming in and by the minority community it was not true that you have to go to that discussion though you have to because most people I think you can have that conversation with you can convince them that that part of it is not true and yet there are bigots in this country and you will not convince them but there is a whole group of other people alright a lot of my friends like to say that oh America the racist country well most racist countries do not elect a black president I may not be clear on everything else but that was kind of an unusual thing for a racist country to do we have a great deal of racism we have a great deal of institutional problems regarding our reactions and whatever with race but I do not believe we are a racist country but our country that sometimes can be fooled by people making arguments about fairness and abuses and otherwise I fully agree with you so Andine I kind of want to go back to I keep going back to Lenny's flow chart there and so I now want to get into the family court piece the immigration court piece because up until now we have talked about probate court in Rhode Island and then family court in Mass in Rhode Island and then USCIS with these 360 interviews the immigration court come in why is this well the immigration court is involved because most of the time they've been detained when they come in across the border because they start to once they've been detained and released they're released with a notice to appear which essentially starts the removal proceedings but they are allowed to delay those removal proceedings while they pursue this other avenue of relief the courts know that they have to go to family and probate court and possibly ultimately CIS but at some point the court still has jurisdiction over these cases CIS can now grant the SIJ petition of special immigrant juvenile status and then rather than go to CIS again for your green card and be asked all these questions about are you a criminal and everything else they can go before a judge and ask for their legal permanent resident status in front of the judge because the court still has had jurisdiction but CIS is the only one that has jurisdiction over the I-360 petition which is what gives them the special immigrant juvenile status so it does have to be veered out of court and before CIS and then it's a determination do you continue with CIS and terminate proceedings or do you go back to the court and ask for your legal permanent resident status to the court? So under the previous administration it wasn't uncommon for removal proceedings to be terminated and for us to be able to move forward with our petition with CIS are you finding that to still be the case under this administration? In Boston, yes. I think we're pretty lucky with the judge in Boston, Judge Beter, I don't know if Judge O'Malley now is handling some SIJ cases as well but they will they will not terminate they will administratively close the proceedings so it remains within their jurisdiction and then once a visa becomes available they will allow you to terminate proceedings but with a trial attorney opposing over the trial attorney's objection so right this notion of a visa becoming available is something that we haven't talked about just yet when we're talking about special immigrant juveniles when special immigrant juveniles came to be in the 1990s I'm not sure that Congress really considered it much and at the time it was only being granted for children who were in in DCYF custody right in state custody who needed special services but with the passing of the TVPRA this notion of requiring these services or being in long-term foster care was something that was done away with by virtue of the TVPRA I think the issue with that is that when in 1990 when this status was enacted because it's sort of this miscellaneous group of people they've classified them as the same type of immigrant as an employment based immigrant so right we for immigration law really has three types of immigration so it's family based immigration employment based immigration and then diversity right and then we have humanitarian for asylum but really the main two and you know the visa quota numbers as a result of the act of 1965 and then 1990 again we're related to this notion of well if they're going to be family based we're going to give this many visas to immigrants who are coming in if they're going to be based on work then we're going to give this number of visas and within this family based we're going to give priority so that if you're the spouse of a U.S. citizen and you came in with a lawful visa we're going to give you first preference versus if you're the brother of a U.S. citizen you're probably going to have to wait a little longer and the same with employment based right so employment based if you're a researcher a doctor you know somebody who's internationally recognized we want you first but then if you're a special immigrant you know we don't want as many of you and in fact we're going to only allocate 10,000 visas per year so that was done right in 1990 and so now here we are in 2017 with I think what Lenny had just suggested right just 800 alone in the state of Rhode Island siege applicants what I forgot what you said Lenny in Massachusetts so right so just Massachusetts and Rhode Island we've used almost all of the visas in the fourth preference category that's like 5,000 visas and by the way of the 10,000 visas that are allocated for special immigrants and special immigrants from the gamut from the alphabet from subsection A to subsection apparently V which I wasn't aware of and there's only 10,000 visas for this entire category of people with the first 5,000 going to religious applicants that really only leaves 5,000 for everybody else and if there's 5,000 alone between Massachusetts and Rhode Island people are going to wait and the special immigrant juveniles are going to wait years before they're ever going to be eligible to and the country cap and the country yes because it depends it depends on the country right so exactly thank you Lenny there's a country cap of 7% in that preference category so it's the notion that here we have minor children who are coming to the United States fleeing violence poverty parents who are not entitled to work or even really be here until they're eligible to apply for their lawful permanent residence which they can't do until there's a visa number available and the wait today in 2017 is now 2 years so now this minor who was 16 maybe turning 18 finished high school can now not work or go to college because they're not entitled to work and they're waiting for a visa number to become available and in the meantime by the way the immigration proceedings are waiting immigration courts waiting to see you I just want to make one the there were I think some bananas out there but here's the thing if you go into a supermarket you will find that you can get 3 pounds of bananas for about a dollar those have to come from I believe primarily Brazil or Central America they have to be grown they have to be locked off they have to be shipped there is no border by and large for products and produce or anything right after the Super Bowl any number of kids in Rwanda all of a sudden were having shirts with Atlantic Falcons Super Bowl champions there is no border for rich people there is no border for capital those things go across borders without any regard the only thing and it's just interesting to me the only thing that there really is a border for is labor and that I find to be a really kind of frustrating thing because in this country actually they made working people at odds with each other and really it is almost a new form of serfdom where you are stuck within a particular border for where you can work and do what you have valuable but everything else can go across borders without regard and I just ask you to think about it in a different perspective because people say oh we got to defend our borders well if somebody is going to invade us I suppose so if people are bringing illegal substances that kill us I mean just remember there is a market here that's why they are doing it so I don't know if you really blame the person that transports it here or the person who is using it who should be treated but here we are talking about this great edifice and all these rules and all these things you go through to defend a concept of border that probably was irrelevant about 200 years ago 100 years ago in the Civil War most of the people who participated had never been 50 miles away from their home I'm sure all of you quite frankly go to a Taco Bell that's 50 miles from here on a regular basis the concept of distance is totally different now the concept of borders should be considered different and we really I would like to see people take a different framework not to point at really an arbitrary and capricious notion from the past but start thinking about how are we going to deal as one of the gentlemen I asked actually earlier about a world that really should be able to work together just my two cents going back to the trauma and the delay in getting the green cards remember this group of clients that we're dealing with they're teenagers most of them and they've been through a significant amount of trauma and you're asking them to behave for the next two to three years before they can get legal status in the US and having done enough of these cases and been around for as long as I've been around I can tell you and having two teenage donors of my own I can tell you that's not a very easy thing to ask these kids to do as attorneys we're many times social workers for these kids and that's another reason why yes we are proselytizing to a certain extent we want to get more family law attorneys involved because I believe they're better equipped with connections to services that can help these children go through the stages and behave for the next few years more so than I don't know Andine if you want to touch upon the actual theory of the individual calendar or I haven't really I prefer to go to CIS instead of going before the judges but based on our conversation the hearing is pretty cut and dry and it seems pretty easy the problem is I'm a private attorney and I charge different fees depending on which venues that makes a big difference because I work at the law school I'm the clinic director I don't charge a fee and so for me although it may be somewhat inconvenient for my client to have to travel to Boston to see the immigration judge it is more convenient to go to the immigration judge judge Federer who handles most of these cases in our jurisdiction who really doesn't ask any questions but to look at the application and say okay immigration granted the classification of special immigrant juvenile the medical exam looks good because they have to do a medical exam making sure that they don't have any communicable diseases medical exam looks good you've never been arrested there's no criminal record does the government have any objections generally speaking they don't approved no direct examination no questioning whatsoever nothing if I was at the CIS office in Johnston my client absolutely would have been harassed about how they came in when they came in who did they come with who paid for the trip all of these questions that they shouldn't be asking in this siege case and they're talking about adjustment of status so it's quite the different things so I see why it is you go to CIS but since I'm not charging I'm on court alright I think that really is all we have so if anybody has any questions we'll be happy to take any questions I just want to make a comment New York is of course different I think we all agree that USCIS since November when they centralized the investigation in Missouri has issued many more challenges so the judge I just want to show their view for example that one of the things they look for in these criminal orders is that they believe the person is only in fast court or criminal court for the purposes of securing status that that is considered like a marriage fraud and doing it for the wrong reason so it's in New York they have keep back many good judges' orders saying they want to know what was the reason that the child petitioned for a guardian and of course there's many reasons like qualifying for healthcare or the adult just in charge of your life it has become much more difficult and challenging in every level across the way so I think you might want to stay in touch with your immigration experts who will then alert you of the news they want to find out what's in mind they're going into a vast wasteland and they'll never know why I decided anything it's interesting Lenny because then some time back I did receive a request for further evidence from immigration on the petition I'd sent out and of course the order in Rhode Island that we prepare is very specific so it says that the order that I the judge find the following and then we lay out all of these facts and then it's where for right now in the best interest to return all this of the language is required and the judge finds it and I have received an RFE that said prove to me that the judge made these findings yes prove to me it's based on law because the judge didn't find any law it's crazy they're not lawyers who do it clearly and so I was out of my mind I submitted the order again and I'm like hmm so I don't know like she's like an article 3 judge on the constitution of the state of Rhode Island what are you going to do and it was the chief judge at the time that used to issue these orders and it was like okay what are you going to do you're going to ask the judge if she made like you don't believe her what are you telling me what do you want me to do and sometimes the request for further evidence that we get are just so outrageous I know I was just talking to Hans at lunch and he was telling me that or it was Hillary telling me that they wanted the section but I do submit the section of the Rhode Island law that states that the family court has jurisdiction over these matters and you know that was one of the RFEs that they received was you know please prove to me that this family court has jurisdiction well I remember here today that apparently the office of chief counsel of ICE is now asking in New York for complete copies of everything found in Family Court which is found under seal for us too and when the lawyer explains to the immigration judge and the ICE counsel well I can give you an affidavit or an affirmation or I can give you this but I have to get an order from the court that can't do that the ICE counsel said well then how do we know it's not fraudulent in other words disrespecting the responsibility that Congress gave the state so as much as we want you to do this law it has become much more complicated it means it's even more important to coordinate with experts in your jurisdiction and to be on top of the patterns I was just going to say the same in Rhode Island with the ceiling we seal it here in juvenile court which I actually like because I don't want to be in Peru but nonetheless when I do RFEs on that you know what do you do it's a challenge I wouldn't want to get into a fight with these people there is an issue of full faith and credit there is an issue of the fact that the Congress specifically gave this particular authority to us for these determinations which are particularly not within the usual processes of federal government and just remember federal government limited government actually the family court in Rhode Island the limited court but it has nothing to do with family law even though they tried to expand it into Congress gave us this authority so I think I would probably at least one time trying to do full faith and credit they're the ones that are actually giving the authority over this I'm going to court we're getting ready we'll defend you just let me know Lani, whatever you need from me I also think that under this administration it's only going to get worse I think this particular group of individuals is under attack just want to, because you're human most of what I know it's like you're getting a tool you can use this tool for almost anything you want to use it for you can build a house or you can if there is any place where I think it's good to practice is for this group of people who are underrepresented who are needy who do no fault of their own and in fact if you want to go back in history probably largely through the fault of the United States of America are living in abject poverty at this point if you just look at the history of our conduct towards Mexico and Central America so this is a good place if you want to feel comfortable about the tool you purchase and using it this type of law is very good stuff right Hans? thank you