Immigrant children as young as 3 are reportedly being forced into court hearings alone

The following article by Brianna Provenzano was posted on the Mic.com website June 28, 2018:

Credit: Screenshot, Vimeo

As the Trump administration scrambles to comply with a federal judge’s order that the immigrant children and parents the government has separated at the border be swiftly reunited, the Texas Tribune reported that some kids as young as 3 years old are being made to attend their own immigration hearings alone.

Immigration attorneys from three states told the Tribune on Thursday that the minors are being forced to sit through their own deportation litigation unaccompanied, with some of the children too young to even remotely understand the proceedings.

“We were representing a 3-year-old in court recently who had been separated from the parents,” Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, told the Tribune. “And the child — in the middle of the hearing — started climbing up on the table. It really highlighted the absurdity of what we’re doing with these kids.” Continue reading “Immigrant children as young as 3 are reportedly being forced into court hearings alone”