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If it were up to him, Judge Paez wrote, he would hold that indigent children under 18 seeking asylum or other forms of relief do have a due process right to be given a government-appointed attorney.
Citing statistics from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, he noted that as of August 2017, 4 of 10 children whose immigration cases began the year prior were unrepresented. That figure rose to 75% for children whose cases started in 2017. This was out of 33,000 cases added in 2016 and 19,000 added in 2017.
He also pointed to TRAC data showing that between 2005 and 2014, only 10% of kids who were unrepresented in immigration court secured an order allowing them to stay in the U.S., compared to 47% of kids who had representation. In addition, the judge flagged a psychological study finding that kids do not understand court procedures as well as adults.
“I cannot ignore this mockery of judicial and administrative processes,” he wrote.
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