Miniature adults

A 10-year-old child is not a miniature adult. However, for practical purposes in an immigration court, there is an expectation that such a minor is prepared to wage a legal battle on matters that most adults cannot handle on their own.

Currently, undocumented adults brought before an immigration court have no right to legal counsel or a defense attorney. Minors from countries that do not border the United States face the same situation.

The image of a child alone before a judge, with an attorney specialized in immigration representing the government doing everything possible to deport the child, is unpleasant. It is not worthy of a society that prides itself onindividual rights.

Nonetheless, for lawmakers like Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.),this system is too permissive. It does not allow the mass deportation of Central American children that they would like to see. According to them, the processing of these children must be accelerated in a sordid legal affair.

As is frequentlythe case, constitutional rights vanish when talk turns to immigration. The protections of an alleged juvenile delinquent do not exist for these young people who are escaping the violence of their countries or coming to reunite with their parents.

It seems to be a legal free-for-all against the detainees, even when in this case they are children of an age when they should be playing and in school. In any case, they must face a legal proceeding alone in which they are forced to acknowledge or reject accusations against them.

They need a defense attorney—someone to look out for the child’s interests and mount an adequate response to the government.

There is a serious problem with a lack of immigration judges and delays in thousands of pending cases. The concern should be to strengthen the system to make it fair, not to accelerate deportations.

The United States is a nation of laws. There must also be a fair legal system to enforce these laws. In other words, don’t put a 10-year-old, who doesn’t even speak the language, alone in a courtroom to face the legal arguments of the adults who want to deport him or her. To do so is an embarrassment.