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Last year, Boston’s immigration court had 643 new juvenile cases, more than four times the number in 2009, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization at Syracuse University. About a third of the children did not have a lawyer. By June, officials had filed 515 new cases in Boston, and 85 percent did not have lawyers.
Here and nationwide, most court cases involve youths from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Nearly 100,000 Massachusetts residents are from those countries, according to the US Census Bureau.
The surge of Central American migrants in recent months has already placed a strain on a number of Massachusetts cities and school systems, such as Chelsea, Lynn, and New Bedford, say officials in those cities. So far this year, more than 770 immigrant children have been released from custody to family members or other guardians in Massachusetts.
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