 Good morning and welcome back to House Futurary Committee and we are working on S163 state court petitions for vulnerable non-citizen youth. We're looking at the version as passed by the Senate. And we are starting our witness testimony. I'd like to welcome Judge Dane. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for the record, Tom Zone, Chief Superior Judge. And I would want to thank the chair and Amber Burke. I did have another obligation later and she's been just wonderful and the chairs with appreciated to for letting me be able to testify and make all my commitments today. I can be pretty brief, I think the short of it is that in 2019 the legislature passed an act that addressed these important issues for non-citizen youth. The bill that was introduced into the Senate S163 was designed to clarify jurisdiction and procedures for the state courts to make special findings for at risk non-citizen children who were petitioning for the special immigrant status. It was also extending jurisdiction to state courts to make those findings youth who had not yet reached the age of 21. When the testimony was taken before the Senate Judiciary Committee, there were a number of concerns that had been identified, I will say I identified concerns that judiciary had other stakeholders identified concerns. Those concerns were addressed. We had discussions with the stakeholders. They were addressed by the committee. And I can say that the bill that is before this committee today as passed does meet with the approval of the court in terms of we support this bill. It does do what it's set out to do, and that is provide the clarification and the extension as saw originally. And so we support this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? That's it. Great. Thank you. Have a safe journey everyone. Take care. Great. You too. Take care. Good morning and welcome, Jill Rudge. It's the first time I've met you and welcome to the House Judiciary. And thank you so much for being with us and testifying on this bill. Good morning and thank you so much for having me. For the record, my name is Jill Rudge and I am an assistant professor and the lead immigration clinic attorney at Vermont Law School. I am overcoming a cold so I apologize about the hoarseness of my voice. I am really privileged to be here and to voice the clinic support for this bill. I was unfortunately unable to attend the read through this morning. So, and I appreciate how valuable everyone's time is. So I might just ask the chair if it would be helpful for me from my immigration legal perspective to provide some context and background as to why I support the bill or whether it would be more helpful for me to focus on some of the actual cases I'm litigating on that fall under this statute. Actually, both would be would be wonderful. Absolutely. Great. Wonderful. Yeah. So, you know, thank you again for this opportunity to offer testimony on the bill. It stands to ensure full access to justice for all federally eligible non citizen youth in offering testimony today. I draw from my experiences representing special immigrant juvenile status eligible youth in Vermont, as well as several years representing Siege eligible youth in New York in both their state court and federal immigration matters. Congress created special immigrant juvenile status to offer at risk non citizen youth under 21, who are dependent upon a state juvenile court, a pathway to safety and stability in the United States. When the reunification with one or both parents is not viable for reasons relating to abuse, abandonment or neglect. When a state juvenile court has taken jurisdiction over questions relating to a non citizen use health, safety or welfare, Congress has empowered the Department of Homeland Security to extend to that use a pathway to permanent residency. If the state court makes findings that the youth meets the elements of an S I J under the immigration and nationality act one oh one a 27 J. When the Vermont legislature passed the original version of this law, it clarified the jurisdiction and procedures for Vermont state courts to make these special findings for any dependent non citizen youth, which in Vermont until now has only included 18 youth under 18. This has meant that non citizen youth over 18 but who have not yet attained 21 have not had access to fully enjoy their federal immigration rights to permanency, which is really a right to safety and stability and protection under the law. In fact, vulnerable non citizen youth ages 18 to 21 are missing out on opportunities to receive work authorization and health care to apply for financial aid to attend college to get licensed to practice their professional technique or trade to accrue time toward citizenship so that they can publicly participate and vote, all of which are necessary to restabilize and at risk non citizen use health, safety and welfare. The immigration clinic fully supports bill s 163 before this committee today, because of the three key ways we see it advancing equal access to justice. First, it extends probate and family division jurisdiction for the limited purpose of making special findings for dependent at risk non citizen youth to allow eligible youth under 21 the opportunity to pitch in the federal government for special immigrant juvenile youth as provided by the INA. The bill also clarifies one with what scope and level of detail of Vermont state court may make these special findings to help ensure that the federal government deems those findings sufficiently detailed as to clearly establish the at risk use eligibility for fid and accepts the state court order on its face. It also clarifies the procedures and purpose of 14 dsa 3098 by bringing the language closer into line with the language included in INA one on one a 27 J. For example cases. I represent presently a handful of at risk non citizen youth from across Vermont regions who are seeking special findings under the statute. And in my experience, the changes introduced by this bill will serve to improve access to justice for this small, but vulnerable group of individuals immensely and with no cost to the government. I can offer several examples. I'm going to change some of the details either going to be annoyingly vague to protect their identity and confidentiality. Example one involves a young client who fled an abusive parent, her dad in her country of origin. Her non abusive parent, her mom had also fled dad earlier, who was her partner, and she fled within an inch of her life, leaving child in the custody and care of mom parents, the child's maternal grandparents. Dad's family and country of origin is wealthy abuse the legal system there to obtain custody of the child over mom's objection and over maternal grandparents objection, enabling dad to subject her to various forms of abuse and neglect. Child fled as soon as possible and reunited with mom here, who sought an order of custody and care under Vermont's parentage statute in the family division, so that mom can have documentation that ensure her right to make decisions about child physical and mental child abuse for schooling for development. The current 14 dsa 3098 codifies and state law the family divisions jurisdiction to make special findings for this at risk non citizen youth, who faces imminent risk of removal to her country of origin. And those amendments in this bill would help ensure that the language format and level of detail of those special findings will clear the ever increasing thresholds set by federal policy, and show that this child is in fact at risk, and that child's mother did enter state juvenile court for the purposes of ensuring her health safety and well being. Thank you. And to the point of over 18 figs. I represent a teenage youth who lost both of her parents to issues relating to violence in her early childhood maternal grandparents provided for her as long as they could, but they are now to six provide for her safety and well being. In the last 11 she cannot consistently make the unsafe route to school, then her health began to deteriorate rapidly turned out she has a chronic illness that is left untreated leads to certain death. She fled here as soon as possible to reunite with a relative who has petitioned for guardianship of her in the probate division. This will ensure that the relative as with the previous example. She has the ability to help guide the child's physical and mental health care, her schooling and her development as she enters her teenage years. They also seek special findings for the child competition for S I J and terminate her removal proceedings and immigration court. The child's slowdown in the court system have caused my client's petition to languish in the system were the pandemic to continue, or if child was just a couple of years older and nearing the age of 18. She may well reach 18 or have reached 18 before receiving her special findings and for S I J. She has the ability to provide for her health care to prevent her from petitioning for S I J from the federal government, losing her opportunity to seek legal status work authorization access to health insurance and financial aid, and ultimately protection from removal to a country where no one can care for her or protect her or provide for her health care to prevent her grave illness or even death. She has the ability to access pathways to health and safety and well being these pathways that Congress afforded when it created special immigrant juvenile status at I N A 101 a 27 J. To conclude, I will share that while the special immigrant juvenile cases I work on admittedly represents a discrete proportion of my docket. I have a really numerous population, although you know I'm not doing affirmative outreach in the community so I can't speak with certainty to need. It's a really important group of non citizen Vermonters folks who are in the most vulnerable position that a non citizen Vermonter might base an at risk youth, who is at risk of removal. And I think with these changes, we're going to improve access to justice for really important and vulnerable population, and I have bear witness to the incredibly stabilizing effects for an entire household that a pathway to permanency like this for an at risk youth can have. Thank you very much again for the opportunity to testify. Thank you so much for your testimony. I'm wondering if you can flesh out for the committee a little bit more like what happens what kinds of conditions what these youth based when they are when they when they like removal proceedings are successful and they're just to clarify the question is the question regarding what kinds of factual situations give rise to a sage eligible youth coming to Vermont or how we know how the proceedings play out. I don't know how they're removable proceedings play out when they are successful and like successful, you know, in that that's probably wrong language here but one of you is removed through those proceedings what kinds of conditions are they in the country that they'll return to. Absolutely so almost exclusively the young people that I represent here in Vermont are folks who either present themselves at a port of entry when they're crossing the border, the Mexican US border, or are detected crossing the border without inspection. They are put into removal proceedings, and then they're taken into the office of refugee resettlement custody until a sponsor can be identified for them to be released from custody, where they can be living with that sponsor and defending themselves in removal proceedings and immigration court. For a lot, you know a lot of these use the use we're talking about those who are eligible for s i j. You know it's a bifurcated process where at first, the youth must seek, you know their special findings in the court upon which they've become dependent by virtue of being at risk. In addition, UST is for special immigrant juvenile status that whole time the immigration court process continues to run. And in Vermont, our cases are venue in the Boston immigration court, which for a clinic of my very small size it's a very labor intensive process, going down to Boston to extend representation to these youth. So we're there, explaining to the immigration judge that this person may be removable as charged at the moment that is petitioning for f i j, and asking the court to leave to let Vermont state courts and USC is completed processes. So I think that there's a sense that there's a breakdown in the process that the youth is not able to obtain the necessary state court findings, or USC is not satisfied with the language that is included in the order from the state court and s i j is not obtained, or to the age out of eligibility, and they have no other claims for relief from removal, then the immigration court can order them removed as charged. And then these young people, at least my clients I can speak about my docket. If they were to be removed to their countries of origin, not one of them would have an adult in their life who can care for them, provide for their safety ensure that they're going to school, provide for their health care, and protect them from the people who are trying to harm them as in the case of my, you know, my first client I shared with you who has an abuser in her life. And my clients tend to not be detained anymore by the time they reach Vermont right they've been released from detention and they're now appearing in immigration court on the non detained docket. But if they are ordered to move then I can take them into custody and effectuate their removal. Thank you. And thanks for your work. Thank you for this opportunity. So, I have a question related to expeditious adjudication. It sounds great but it's too vague in my mind and I worry that if we don't say within, so it's like bottom of page four top of page five, if we don't specify. But in 60 days or within six months that these cases can language and I'm thinking a lot of just adoption cases even or other cases where, even though they're supposed to happen quickly. They don't happen quickly and that's not so great. So do you have thoughts about that. You know, and I would definitely defer to the other witnesses as well. And I don't want to speak for anyone else or for the Senate Judiciary Committee but it's my understanding that the Senate committee was concerned about the being too prescriptive about timelines in the event of something like COVID-19 that makes it literally impossible to meet certain deadlines and like these catastrophic unforeseen situations and I recall that there was a question about whether the if the state was not able to meet these timelines whether there would be a right of action. I'm an immigration rights advocate. So of course I have, you know, my position that I always seek the statutory language that would put my clients in the best position to have access to the justice. And so certainly I share your concern about the risk that a case could languish on the docket. As I mentioned I have one languishing now and if my client were just a little bit older under the current language she would be aging out of eligibility. And is it ever the case that if somebody's languishing their language, their languishing, I mean I, it's been troubling that there have been people sitting in jail during COVID awaiting their trial for a really long time. Would that situation of a like secure residential program be where some of these people are awaited? Like, could that be happening to this population? So for non-citizen youth, I mean it could, it could happen that there could be a young person who is in ICE detention while, you know, they're in custody while they're awaiting their, the adjudication of their special findings petition for USCIS. What I see more commonly is, you know, you're going to the immigration court and you're saying, Judge, you know, we respectfully request a long adjournment on this question of my client's removability because while she is currently removable of charge, she, she soon won't be because she's a prima facie claim for special immigrant juvenile status. And I could see, depending on who is setting policy and procedure for the immigration court, which is not a special article one court, it's a, you know, it's an administrative law court firmly situated within the executive in the political branch. I could see the court as we have seen in recent years be more aggressive about pushing cases along and not wanting to grant vulnerable respondents like a non-citizen siege youth, the time that they need to allow the state court process to happen and the DHS process to happen. And I could see vulnerable at-risk youth are prima facie siege eligible being ordered removed. Is there any protection that you might add to the bill to open up situation at all? You know, and I'd be curious to hear from others again, but it is my perspective that by this bill kind of expands the bucket of individuals who are able to begin the two step process in Vermont State Court to the fullest extent, to be authorized by Congress in the INA. And so it seems to me that this is a very robust approach in line with a lot of our neighboring states who have passed very similar legislation including Maine and New York and Massachusetts. And so I feel very supportive of the approach that this bill has taken. Thank you. And then we have a new Hampshire. Are they included in that list? That is a great question representative. I have a list in front of me. So, allow me to check. No. I did not see New Hampshire. I'm looking to say. Thank you. Well, if there are no further questions, thank you very much for your time. And again, you know, to the extent that it would be helpful for the committee to hear from the clinic again, I would be very grateful to rejoin you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate your testimony in your work. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning to the committee for the record Aaron Jacobson from the attorney general's office and I'm here to testify in strong support of this bill. You've already heard from this is who kind of explained the purpose of the bill and professor red should a fantastic job of illustrating with case examples. Why, why we need this bill and to your question representative rages and why do we need this bill. So I thought I could just step back a little bit to like how how this bill came about. And in so doing also use a case example that illustrates kind of the backstory of how we got here so back in 2018 and 2019 I was working at the immigration clinic where professor red now works and we were representing a family of four children from Angola. And they, along with their mom who had representation out of Boston, they were all in removal proceeding so the our government was trying to deport all of them because they'd overstayed their visa. Mom had a really strong withholding case which is like asylum, but the kids didn't have the same case and so we were able to do was through a proceeding a parentage proceeding in Addison County. We were able to, first of all make sure that mom who was a single mom living with the kids in Vermont in a very vulnerable state was able to get a parentage determination that she was the sole custodial parent of these four kids because in fact, dad had disappeared nobody knew where dad was. There was there were some indications that maybe he had that he was dead, that something bad had happened to him, but also if there were some indications that he had just kind of abandoned the family. Nobody really knew. So mom got this parentage determination that that that made it clear that she was the sole custodial parent. Through that process, we also asked the court if it could make the special findings for the kids so that we could then take those special findings from the state court and apply for special immigrant juvenile status. Well, the judge said no, I don't have jurisdiction to issue these particular findings. I can do the parentage, but I can't say anything as to, for example, whether or not it's in the child's the children's best interest to be returned to ambola. We got into a fairly long complicated legal battle that ended up going on for several months, maybe maybe more than a year actually ended up in the Vermont Supreme Court, where we did. When I threw a unanimous decision that yes, our state courts do have jurisdiction to make these requested special findings, because our courts are the purpose of these of these proceedings is to make best interest determinations for kids. And it is our state courts that that have the expertise when it comes to care and custody of children. So there is a favorable decision out of Vermont Supreme Court. And that was in June of 2019. However, nothing in statute, nothing codified. And so then in 2019 began the effort to codify this, the jurisdictional ability of courts to issue these special findings. There was a bill. And then in that bill there was also the over 18 provisions, which at the very last second, I think it was like the day before the state house was to close down for COVID. The over 18 provisions got scrapped from the bill. And that was in so that was in March of 2020. And then forward then this bill is is is a next step from from that bill in 2020 to really clarify what the purpose of these findings are that all of the all of our state courts have jurisdiction to issue these special findings, and that also that's the case for kids who are having special findings, which then aligns with the federal law, allowing for kids between the ages of 18 and 21 to get special immigrant juvenile status. I should also add that in that that case that ended up in the Supreme Court, the oldest child was 17 and three quarters when we were fighting with the court about needing these special findings, and we needed them quickly. The first thing to do was ask for an expedited processing with the Supreme Court. And we had to quickly turn around our brief and then have expedited arguments, and then we had to ask the court to order the order the lower court to quickly issue the findings before the child turned 18 because otherwise he was going to age out. And that happened approximately 10 days before his birthday. So we don't, that's the kind of situation where the litigation went on and on and on. It was really complicated. It was really fraught. The oldest child is about to age out there in removal proceedings. And then we had to ask for this expedited processing at the highest court. So in part, this bill is just to avoid all of that and also just make it clear that of course our courts have the authority to issue the findings requested. Really helpful. Okay. So I'm just curious, going back to the dad that just disappeared. Was he in the US when he disappeared? He was at one point. And then he left the family in, and he never came back. No one ever knew where he went or what happened to him. And I guess I would just say too that that situation also illustrates why in the bill there's language about abuse, abandonment, neglect or similar circumstances. So under federal immigration law, a death of a parent could be similar circumstances. The situation where one of the parents just kind of disappears, even if it wasn't of their own volition, maybe something bad happened to him, that would satisfy abuse, abandonment, neglect or similar circumstances. So I have one more question and I probably missed this and it's already been asked and answered by, but this seems like to me like we're dealing with something that the federal government should be dealing with. How did it get to this point? And why and just make it as quick as you can because I don't want to bore everybody. Well, you're not boring me. I think it's a really insightful question and here's the reason why because Congress decided that when they designed special immigrant juvenile status, when they created that humanitarian relief. When did that happen? That was in the 90s, I want to say. I think it was 1992. I could get back to you on exactly when that law was passed. I don't know what administration that was. I'm fairly certain it was the Clinton administration, but I will get back to you. But Congress felt that because the relief was for children who are abused, abandoned or neglected. It was initially created for kids who are like, maybe in foster care who had foster parents who were perhaps US citizens, but the kids had no status. There was a real inability to make sure that the kids had safe safety and security in the United States. That was kind of the initial purpose of the bill was to create status for those vulnerable abused kids. However, Congress felt that at the time the immigration and nationality service, which is now Department of Homeland Security, but the federal immigration agency did not have the expertise to make determinations about care and custody of kids. That's just not their area of expertise. So they created this two-part scheme where they said it starts in the state courts, you get the findings, and then you can apply for the federal status. Does a birth certificate come in any type of this area at all? Does that mean anything with dealing with this type of stuff? I'm not certain I understand the question of birth certificate. So the identity of where the kids come from and all that stuff, is there any starting point of their life that the government would look at to try to identify with the individuals? Well, certainly when you apply for any kind of immigration status with the immigration agency, you have to prove your identity. And if you're applying for special immigrant juvenile status, you would want to prove that you're not a U.S. citizen, that you were not born in the United States. Otherwise, if you were born in the United States, you wouldn't need the status as well. You would want to show where you're from because you need that special finding about how it's not in your best interest to be returned to your country of origin or your last habitual residence. So it's important that you're able to prove who you are and where you're from in that context for sure. I do see that Professor Ritch has their hand up. Yeah. Thank you very much, Chair. Attorney Jacobson, if I may offer, because I have the benefit of testifying virtually, I have access to my own my thing, Pierre, and the representatives earlier question about when FIJ was added to the INA. So Congress added FIJ to the Immigration Nationality Act in 1990 under their President George H. Bush administration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see any hands. Thank you. Rebecca. Good morning. Good morning, committee. Good to be back. For the record, Rebecca Turner at the Defender General's Office. I have appeared before you many times and you're certainly aware of my work in the Defender General's Office. What you may not be aware of before I came here to the Defender General's Office more than 15 years ago, I was an immigration attorney. And one of the many hats I still wear within the Defender General's Office is to be part of a team of other attorneys where we provide consults to other attorneys in our system. And as you know, the private attorneys who are contracted in to represent clients who are assigned attorneys or public defenders, both in the family chins proceeding context, delinquency context and criminal, criminal court context. And so as Judge Zone and Aaron have already spoken to. We were closely all of us together when this bill was before Senate Judiciary to come together and on the precise language you've gotten a sort of a taste of the highly technical nature of this status what it takes to qualify for the complicated nature. It's really also unique in immigration status is an immigration law this requirement that Congress set up that Aaron was just talking about this two part process. Looking to the state courts to make special findings because it is in the state courts wheelhouse to consider the child's best interest and welfare right to make those findings to then bring it back to federal immigration requirements and federal immigration. Judicators to consider ultimate qualifications. And as Aaron said, there's not just you know proof of identity, but there are background checks to make sure the criminal background checks. And it's just the requirements to meet the status. We're just seeing the small part here, which is state courts, making findings as is deemed appropriate based on what is before them. And so I think that that was consistent was qualifying for this status. I think that maybe I'll I'll just land on some of the questions I've heard based and go from there and also if you have new questions please, please let me know I think one of the questions that is relating to the purposes. There was a reference to maybe we can be better, better clarify the purpose section. I think that was page four has a page four page and page five section. There's a reference to the purpose as construed by the legislative purposes of certainly I would not have any objection to bringing in the language that I saw put in as the purposes of this bill right here. I think that would make it more clear. There was another question as to the purposes section. This is on page seven bottom of page seven section D structurally. This is sort of a setup to repeat and confirm that the family that the courts and landing on this entitled 14 have jurisdiction and also entitled 43. The bottom of page seven going to purposes is in title 3333. And so relative to the purposes section there. It is cross whispering call cross referencing back to 5101 and in that section of title 33 the legislature has set out specific purposes under the Chin's scheme the child. Children in need of currency provision proceedings are the need for permanency reunification to ensuring the safety of the child and so on. It's a long established list of factors that the court has to consider whenever it is considering anything in these Chin's proceedings and so we wanted to make sure that this section was consistent with that. So there was discussion about it furthering the understanding of child interest child's best interests and in the siege context. There is oftentimes reference to the child's best interest but in the Chin's context that term has a special definition of the child's best interest in the statute defining what the child's best interest in considerable case law developing what those statutes mean. So we wanted to make sure we didn't use the child's best interest raising in this section to cause confusion. And so all of that by way of saying we thought it best to in that section sub part D on page 7 to go back to the 5101 section. I think those are the questions that I heard and I'll pause here for any new additional questions. Okay. Talks about specifying a time period. Right. No, I think that I share your concerns. As Jill relayed she that was my understanding of how the issue was raised in Senate judiciary that that if there was a more prescriptive specific requirement set up by the legislature to the judiciary you must consider this with an X amount of time that it would get in the way of possibly other things like the court knows it's not the best and can and can prioritize within. And as we know, circumstances changed and have changed in terms of identifying how quickly how many cases can go before the court but I do share the concern. I think that the language in there, which is not just as administratively feasible that's on page 5 proper page 5. It says that this is in at least title 12 section title 14 section expeditious adjudication, the court shall issue findings, as soon as it is administratively feasible. I think that it's, it's strengthened by the and that immediately follows and prior to the non citizen child turning 21, because to me that is the safety net there that we're taught we were concerned with and what Aaron talked about with her specific case, where she was just stays away from her client the child turning 18 and aging out. I know adoption cases are similar in terms of the 18th birthday and there's pressure from the feds in terms of like money if we're not in compliance with permanency planning. And yet it seemed it seems like some of those cases I've taken a super long so I still like it. I worry about like what's convenient for the court and if there's another pandemic, certain businesses needs to happen during this pandemic and it seems like you should let people off the hook that way. So I just wonder about like people I mean the court like we need to figure this out like we have people who could get to courted we have people who are sitting and like we need to do something so I guess I just wonder about leaving it to the court just I get that the courts are busy and have competing interests but but we definitely we the legislature I think talk a lot about hearing about it so like this should this be red flag does like this first. No I would certainly support the additional language in that section of making sure it's clear that the legislature intends these cases to be treated as top priority. Pandemic or not pandemic or not that that that the and whether it fits into the purpose section that we talked about bringing that language of the bill right into the statute itself it could be there. I would put it in as as given priority. I can put that back. I was trying to pull up the older versions I know that this language changed during the course of discussions in the Senate judiciary and I just don't have the original language in front of me but there might be something that would support that would support that. How many cases are we dealing with it for a year. Yes, good question we've been asked that I and I think that the Jill and Aaron can can speak to what they have seen in terms of what and I was talking to Jen Micah at DCF about the cases that we've seen and there have we couldn't recall the cases in the state court family courts chins context which is where I would see them. Right. This is like a more expansive would allow it to go into the probate guardianship probate court Marina which I think is where they would most more often come and as I understand that's where those cases have come. But no we have not seen one case where we've requested what I've heard about right where we were a client or a juvenile is asked a judge and family court chins proceedings for these findings. However, this is having this as an option as part of the toolbox for representing a juvenile representing a child has been abandoned right and we're trying to as as a as an attorney representing their interest. Think of all the various ways we can achieve that permanency protection one of them may be stabilizing their immigration status these children come and have no status right if they can if they qualify. Get this special immigrant juvenile path status and then is their their pathway to getting a green card right when the defender has that case and is looking. We look at all sorts of things. Lots of times these children will qualify for other immigration statuses. This is a particularly difficult status to get not that any of the others are easy. But it may make sense in any given case to pursue a different one a crime against and via status under the violence against what violence against women act provides a way for a child to get immigration status. There are also other statuses for crime victims right working with a prosecutor so there may be other ways to achieve legal immigration status besides this so when we when I say that there are that I'm not aware of any known cases in the family chins court docket where a judge has been asked to make these findings. That's not to say the need for this doesn't exist. Right. I mean Vermont by its nature demographically speaking. We have very few relatively speaking numbers of noncitizens. But we do have in our chin system children who are not citizens. We do have children in our system we're representing children who don't have legalized immigration status who are vulnerable. Not just to have an instability in their homes which is why DCF had to intervene and bring that child into state custody. We have children who are also vulnerable for immigration to detect their undocumented status and remove them from this country even though there are these ongoing state court proceedings to protect them. Right. Congress again of all the various ways that they've they've determined the ability for someone to gain lawful immigration status. They landed on this one. So here we are. And it really is a narrow technical correction. And so what we are here to do is to make sure that the intent which is to make clear that the state courts have jurisdiction over this this narrow matter. Both in terms of the subject you can issue these findings. You can issue these findings for children or youth over 18 and less than 21. That was the other critical fix. Because right now state courts are limited in jurisdiction to a child who is not yet 18. Right. And federal immigration law child is defined not as 18 but under 21. And so that's that fixed to that this bill is is trying to correct and make clear. Thank you. I'm still thinking about this question and about possibly putting in a purpose or intent. But often those get taken out of bills or they end up in session law or something like that. So I was wondering if you could remind me of the rules of set straight construction in terms of being liberally construed or should be construed in favor of the somebody finished my sentence. Do you know what I mean. Like is is there a principle already. The purpose is determined by the plain language of the statutes. Right. And so that is the start and finish. If it's clear. You don't go anywhere else. If it's ambiguous less clear than we look outside of the record including the purpose section of the bill. Right. So it is stronger to have a directly in the statute itself. It will be less ambiguous as to what was intended. Yeah. I'm just sometimes in terms of the legislative process purposes or findings and you know intent don't always don't always make it to the finish line. So I just just wanted to primer on the law and you know the law and whether the law would be in our favor for some reason we weren't able to get that person there. Martin. Yeah. Just on that. But we usually don't have a provision where we talk about construction and. So so the fact that we have that there suggests we should have a statement and maybe that that makes the purpose statement more likely to survive through the whole process. But that wasn't my question. I had is very narrow actually. It's in the first page and it's the definition of court and do we need to have the including the probate division and the family division of the superior court. Is there a reason why you think we should keep that because I mean it's otherwise covered in the first part of that definition. Again it was it was it was the intent of that was to make it crystal clear to those two courts which is where we anticipate Belton suspenders. That's right. Again for sake of clarity and purposes we are here even though a version of this past. So we're trying to make sure we don't have to go back and dot another. I. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Hey, our last witness Rita. From my great justice. Morning. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Can you hear me well. Yes. Yes. Excellent. So, yeah, I think I'm here, you know, not as an attorney, but someone that is really close to the community that we're talking about. And just to, you know, put a little bit of reality of the situations and cases that that we see happen. Kind of the context of how, you know, parents decide to come here in a way that's kind of forced migration because opportunities back in their countries are not there. So families are separated in that way that parents have to come here and then years pass and because the situation here hasn't really changed much. And kids back home don't see the opportunities to keep studying or, you know, get opportunities there have to migrate here again. And we see kids coming after their parents were here for many years. And, you know, all the psychological thing that comes with that I haven't grown up with my parent. Now, I'm following their tracks, coming to work in the same situation that they are. So we keep the pattern of putting youth in vulnerable places. They might come and have the opportunity to get to the school but the reality is that they cannot because they have to work. They have to start thinking about making their own money while parents have been there for many years, just helping them survive through the younger years. And the protections for the youth is really going to bring them not only to keep the pattern of keep working and, you know, conditions that are not great, but also giving them the opportunity to be young. And with that youth, they can really, you know, pass the life in a way that they really are, if they are here, they are protected to learn a new language, finish a school. Start having jobs in different places, really helping them to go through a way in life that doesn't have to be the same that their parents were forced to when they migrate here. So that's what I want to share. I think it's really important when we see young people in the farms coming in and it gets younger and younger. And, you know, having them being hidden, not really getting opportunities. I personally have my kids here growing up, and I can see how, you know, having them did the privilege and opportunity to not be afraid and be able to go to school and then apply for college and do all those other things really opens their mind and also made them like part of this society in a good way that they're integrated. So we want that for these kids that come here too. We don't want them to be hidden in the farms or hidden in, you know, home because of the fear of their immigration status. And we need to realize that they are still kids learning, and we don't want them to learn that they have to be in the shadows. We want them to really be able to grasp the opportunities that they come from and it's not been exploited by the labor force. We want them to be, you know, like people that it's not the future is the present, and that they are going to be held in this world for us to be better like we're getting older. They have to have good opportunities and be well here. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions. Okay. Do you want to?