Immigrant youths who faced neglect and abuse filed a lawsuit seeking class action status Thursday, challenging the Trump administration’s ending of a 2022 policy that automatically gave them protection from deportation and work permits while they waited to apply for green cards, a process that can take years because of backlogs.
The plaintiffs, several immigrant youths with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and the legal service providers Central American Refugee Center and Centro Legal de la Raza, are asking the court to reinstate the 2022 policy.
Attorneys in the case say its termination last month by the Trump administration is unlawful and goes against what Congress intended in protecting young people who had faced trauma and neglect.
“This is a case about broken promises with devastating consequences,” an attorney for the plaintiffs, Rachel Davidson, the director of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition at the National Immigration Project, said in a statement. “State courts and the federal government have already found that it is not safe for these young people to return to their countries of origin, but their protection is now being callously stripped away. These young people have survived abuse, abandonment, and neglect only to be retraumatized now by the constant threat of detention and deportation from the same agencies that vowed to keep them safe.”
The SIJS classification, which Congress created in 1990 as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, protects immigrant minors who have been victims of abuse, abandonment or neglect in their countries and gives them a path to permanent residency in the United States. They must be under 21 or under 18 in some states.
“Congress has agreed that this group of young people are particularly vulnerable and in need of protection. One form of that protection has been deferred action. The government wants to take away the protections. The law requires it to provide a good, reasoned explanation. It failed to do so here. So in order to protect these most vulnerable children, we’re filing this lawsuit,” Alexander Shalom, chair of the Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest, told NBC News.
The White House referred NBC News to the Department of Homeland Security when it was asked for comment on the lawsuit. DHS sent a statement from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser, who stated that “as a matter of practice, USCIS does not comment on pending litigation.”
Fearful of what could come next
Rodrigo Sandoval, 17, just graduated from high school in South Carolina. He gets excited when he talks about what he'd like to do — he's interested in business administration, graphic design or joining the Navy — but his face becomes solemn when he talks about the future.
“I’ve noticed a lot of changes, especially in the Hispanic community. We live in constant fear of being deported, arrested and all that,” said Sandoval, who came to the United States at age 12, fleeing El Salvador because of gang violence that threatened his and his family's lives.
One of his earliest memories is when he was 5. “It’s one of my traumas because they put a gun to my head. All I remember is crying out of fear,” said Sandoval, who is a beneficiary of the classification.
Rodrigo Sandoval and his 20-year-old sister, Alexandra, have already been approved for SIJS but are on the waiting list to apply for permanent residency. Both of their work permits expire next year, and according to their lawyer, they still have three to five years to wait before their status can be adjusted.
Though they have protections under SIJS, Alexandra is still worried about what could happen. “If the police stop us and ask for our documents, it’s all over, because we risk being deported.”
According to Jennifer Bade, an immigration attorney based in Boston, once youths like Rodrigo and Alexandra are approved for special immigrant juvenile status, they’re put on a waiting list, which is very, very long. "We typically tell clients it’ll probably take more than four or five years,” she said.
Now, after changes during the Trump administration, work permit and Social Security applications must be processed separately, complicating the process for many young people because, in many cases, granting the applications depends on visa availability.
“It’s very strange that they’re in that category, because SIJS is about humanitarian protection for young immigrants. There shouldn’t be visa limits for these young people,” Davidson said.
Verónica Tobar Thronson, a professor at Michigan State University’s School of Law, said many of the young immigrants may not be able to get work permits or renew current ones. “If they don’t have a work permit or an ID, they can’t travel, they can’t enter a federal building, they can’t apply for a Social Security number — they also don’t qualify for student loans if they enroll in college, and in some states, they can’t apply for assistance with medical or social services because they don’t qualify for anything at all,” she said.
In information sent to Noticias Telemundo, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said foreign nationals from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are the majority of SIJS applicants “and collectively represent more than 70% of all SIJS applications,” although it didn’t specify the total number.
USCIS said that while it’s not rescinding protection from deportation from those who already have it, it has the “right to rescind the grant of deferred action and revoke the related employment authorization at any time, at its discretion.”
A long wait for green card status
More than 107,000 young SIJS beneficiaries from 151 countries were on the waiting list to apply for green cards as of March 2023, according to data collected by groups such as the End SIJS Backlog Coalition and Tulane Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic.
Of the approximately 280,000 SIJS applications approved in the last 12 fiscal years, “more than 139,000 have been filed or approved for adjustment of status," according to USCIS.
The current processing time for applications for the program (the SIJ I-360 form) is less than five months, according to USCIS. However, the annual visa cap creates a bottleneck because, regardless of the speed of SIJS processing, the number of visas issued remains the same.
Hiromi Gómez, a 17-year-old student with SIJS, said it took her nine years to get to apply for a green card, "and I still haven’t received it." She worries about more recent young immigrants who will have a harder time securing protections because of recent changes.
Exploring options
Khristina Siletskaya is a South Carolina-based immigration attorney who, among other things, handles cases involving SIJS beneficiaries, including the Sandoval siblings. Siletskaya, a Ukrainian-born attorney, said that despite changes in U.S. immigration policies, “all hope is not lost.”
“This new change that everyone is talking about eliminated the automatic granting of deferred action [from deportation]. However, the United States continues to approve cases of special immigrant juvenile status; that continues to operate normally,” she said.
Siletskaya and other experts emphasized that the recent changes are a return to the past, because the automatic granting of deferred action and work permits was implemented in May 2022 but didn’t exist before. Attorneys for young people with SIJS are exploring other legal avenues to assist them in their search for protection.
“Does this mean young people can’t get Social Security? First, you can try the Department of Social Services. Often, you may be able to get Social Security, but it will indicate that you’re not eligible for work purposes,” Siletskaya said. “So young people could at least get emergency Medicaid, but that will depend on each state.”
She said there are ways to try to obtain a work permit. The first is to apply separately and ask USCIS to grant it. Siletskaya said she has several cases in which they have initiated that process, but she warned that she hasn’t yet received responses in them.
Another option explored by attorneys is to obtain a work permit based on parole, since young people with SIJS are often granted parole as they work to adjust their status and obtain green cards.
Following the recent changes to SIJS, 19 lawmakers led by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expressing concern about the changes. The letter said it "leaves abused and abandoned youth in legal limbo while heightening their vulnerability to exploitation.”
The members of Congress said they had received reports “of an increase in the number of detentions and deportations of SIJS beneficiaries.”
Cortez Masto and other Democrats introduced the Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Protection Act in Congress, seeking to change visa categories for SIJS beneficiaries and prevent delays in adjusting their status, among other things. But the lack of Republican support could hamper its passage.
The bill is still in its early stages of discussion in the Senate, according to Cortez Masto's office, and members of Congress haven’t yet received an official response to the letter sent to Noem.
'Not give up'
Siletskaya and other attorneys consulted by Noticias Telemundo recommend that young people with SIJS avoid taking risks and remain cautious.
"Don't get into trouble. If you don’t have a driver’s license, let your friends drive. Stay discreet, respect the law, stay out of situations where you might be exposed and wait until you receive your green card,” she said.
Despite immigration changes and other challenges, Rodrigo Sandoval said he wanted to make the most of every minute of his work permit, which expires next year. That’s why he has two jobs: He’s a barber and also works on construction sites to help his family.
“My message to people is to keep fighting and keep dreaming big. I don’t think there are limits, because we as Hispanics are fighters. And this comes from other generations,” he said, getting emotional. “The truth is, what we have to do is not give up.”
An earlier version of the article was published in Noticias Telemundo.
