SIJS

Los Angeles County leaders have approved new funding to provide immigration lawyers for foster youth, citing changes to federal policies that have made it more difficult and risky to address the rights of abused and neglected youth in the immigration system.

Last week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra weighed in by saying that California should play a greater role in protecting youth who are fleeing dangerous conditions in their home countries.  At the invitation of the Los Angeles Superior Court and the suggestion of the California Supreme Court, Becerra filed an amicus brief in the In re Denis G.

For nearly two years after he arrived in the United States from Guatemala as an unaccompanied minor, Carlos* never saw an immigration attorney, including during an eight-month stint at a border detention center.

The trophies displayed on the fireplace mantle of a stately Gothic mansion represent just some of the accomplishments of the kids at Casa Libre, an emergency and long-term shelter for undocumented homeless youth in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park neighborhood.