Undocumented Immigrant Youths and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS): At the Crossroads of Child Welfare and Immigration Policy

Abstract

Immigrant youths who enter the U.S. without inspection present a dilemma for the State. While their classification as ‘youth’ characterizes them as vulnerable and deserving of protection, their status as ‘illegitimate immigrants’ poses a threat to the State’s control over citizenship. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) emerges as a potential solution. SIJS is a unique law that bridges the laws, institutions, and authorities across two jurisdictions: (1) child and family welfare, which falls under the states’ jurisdiction, and (2) immigration, which is a federal matter. To obtain SIJS, youths must first petition a state court judge for findings of parental abuse, abandonment, or neglect, demonstrating that returning to their home country is not in their best interest. These findings enable them to apply for SIJS with federal immigration authorities (USCIS).

This two-step jurisdictional decision-making process presents challenges, confusion, and frustrations for professionals navigating both domains. Lawyers must strategize across two sets of laws and balance competing judicial logics, while state court judges and federal immigration authorities grapple with questions of authority and relativity when logics conflict with established norms. Despite these challenges, SIJS is the most successful and preferred pathway to legal relief for undocumented immigrant youths. While federal authorities often restrict asylum eligibility, state court authorities can (re)open doors to immigration protections. The success of SIJS cases prompts inquiry into why the integration of the child welfare system and notions of deservingness expands access to immigration protections, particularly within a landscape seeking to limit immigrants' avenues for recognition and protection. Through SIJS’s cross-jurisdictional decision-making process, this dissertation offers a unique perspective on extending immigration benefits through child welfare institutions. It explores three questions: (1) How and why do certain conceptualizations of vulnerability and violence prevail as recognized eligibility criteria for immigration legal relief, while others may not? (2) How does the involvement of non-federal institutions in the case of SIJS expand, rather than contract, immigration benefits? (3) What challenges do legal professionals confront as they work within this cross-jurisdictional law to apply and adjudicate moral categories of deservingness, establishing immigrant youths’ eligibility for legal relief?

I argue that conceptualizations of vulnerability and violence in SIJS follow the logics of the U.S. domestic child welfare regime. This alignment renders them more attainable conditions of victimhood for youths, privileging them over other frameworks of suffering. Child welfare laws and institutions operate on a model of comprehensive inclusion and flexibility, with judges generously extending state protections. In contrast, relief forms like asylum tend to operate on an exclusive model driven by the State's suspicion of undocumented immigrants, leading adjudicators to seek reasons to deny rather than approve claims. While this inclusivity in child welfare interventions has facilitated the hyper-surveillance of marginalized families, its application in SIJS cases aids immigrants in accessing legal status, with state court judges serving as crucial gate-openers in immigration governance. Lawyers become key brokers between the institutional logics and authorities of the child welfare and immigration regimes, navigating legal complexities to secure SIJS for their clients while limiting the extension of state surveillance and exclusionary tactics over this population. The SIJS case asks us to consider how the integration of different institutional logics within immigration governance can open or close doors to benefits based on the moral categories underpinning the institutions’ perception of the individual within society.