RECORD IMPOUNDED

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-3938-18T2

L.A.P.H.

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

M.A.R., (Deceased),

Defendant-Respondent.

___________________________________ 

IN THE MATTER OF L.V.E.P.1, a Minor.

___________________________________

Submitted November 14, 2019 – Decided August 12, 2020

Before Judges Alvarez and Nugent.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, 

Chancery Division, Family Part, Essex County, 

Docket No. FD-07-2382-17. 

1

Initials are used in this appeal of an order denying a motion to amend a 

predicate order required to petition the United States Citizenship and 

Immigration Services to protect the privacy and safety of the appellant and 

minor child. Protection of the appellant and minor child is a compelling 

interest that outweighs the Judiciary's commitment to transparency.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the 

internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
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Grigaite & Abdelsayed LLC, attorneys for appellant 

(Shokry G. Abdelsayed, on the brief).

PER CURIAM 

Qualifying for "special immigrant juvenile" (SIJ) status under the 

Immigration Act of 1990, as amended by the William Wilberforce Trafficking 

Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, Pub. L. No.110-457, 122 Stat.

5044 (Trafficking Protection Act), provides "a form of immigration relief 

permitting alien children to obtain lawful permanent residency and, eventually, 

citizenship." H.S.P. v. J.K., 223 N.J. 196, 200 (2015). A child residing in 

New Jersey who seeks SIJ status must apply to a Superior Court judge for a 

predicate order finding the child meets the statutory requirements. Ibid. The 

child must then petition the United States Citizenship and Immigration 

Services (Immigration Services) and demonstrate statutory eligibility. 

In this case, plaintiff L.A.P.H., on behalf of her child, applied for and 

received from a Family Part judge a predicate order the child met the statutory 

criteria for SIJ status. Immigration Services deemed the Family Part judge's 

findings inadequate. The child filed a motion for an amendment to the first 

order, and a different Family Part judge denied the motion and entered the 

order from which this appeal is taken. We reverse and remand for further 

proceedings. 
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In 2017, plaintiff commenced this action in the Family Part seeking 

custody of her child and a predicate order under the Trafficking Protection Act 

and its implementing regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(c), that would enable her 

child, a non-citizen, to apply for SIJ status. A court deciding such applications 

must make the following findings: 

(1) The juvenile is under the age of 21 and is 

unmarried;

(2) The juvenile is dependent on the court or has been 

placed under the custody of an agency or an individual 

appointed by the court;

(3) The "juvenile court" has jurisdiction under state 

law to make judicial determinations about the custody 

and care of juveniles;

(4) That reunification with one or both of the 

juvenile's parents is not viable due to abuse, neglect, 

or abandonment or a similar basis under State law; and

(5) It is not in the "best interest" of the juvenile to be 

returned to his parents' previous country of nationality 

or country of last habitual residence within the 

meaning of 8 U.S.C.A. §1101(a)(27)(J)(ii). . . .

[H.S.P., 223 N.J. at 219 (citing In re Dany G., 223 

Md. App. 707 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2015)).]

When making these findings, the court is to apply New Jersey law. Id. at 212.

The Family Part judge who heard plaintiff's initial application found the 

child, a citizen and national of Guatemala, was an unmarried, unemancipated 
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minor under the age of twenty-one. The judge noted New Jersey law 

authorized the court to make judicial determinations about custody and care of 

juveniles. The judge declared the child dependent on the Superior Court of 

New Jersey. Based on the evidence before him, the judge determined that it 

was not in the best interest of the child to be returned to the country of origin 

and of last habitual residence, Guatemala, because there was no one in 

Guatemala to support and care for the child, the child's father and numerous 

family and friends having been killed as the result of pervasive gang violence. 2 

Significant to this appeal, the court made "no findings as to abuse and 

neglect [because] reunification is otherwise impossible because the minor's 

father is deceased." The court granted sole physical and residential custody of 

2

 The longstanding violence in Guatemala during the period that included the 

time of the father's death is well known. "Following the official end of 

Guatemala's 36-year-long armed conflict in 1996," widespread social and 

economic violence by youth gangs and other groups had become the norm. 

Alisa Winton, Youth, gangs and violence: Analysing the Social and spatial 

mobility of young people in Guatemala City, CHILDREN'S GEOGRAPHIES 

3:2 167, 170 (2005),

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14733280500161537

"Incredibly, the death rate in Guatemala is now higher than it was for much of 

the civil war. . . . Between 2000 and 2009, the number of killings rose steadily, 

ultimately reaching sixty-four hundred. . . . In 2009, fewer civilians were 

reported killed in the war zone of Iraq than were shot, stabbed, or beaten to 

death in Guatemala." David Gran, A Murder Foretold: Unravelling the 

ultimate political conspiracy, The New Yorker, (March 28, 2011) 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/04/a-murder-foretold. 
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the child to plaintiff after determining it was in the child's best interest to 

remain outside Guatemala in the care and custody of plaintiff, the child's 

mother. 

In September 2017, after the Family Part judge entered his order, 

plaintiff submitted a Form I-360 application to Immigration Services for SIJ 

status for her child. Immigration Services found the Family Part order 

inadequate. Specifically, Immigration Services deemed the Family Part Order 

insufficient because "it does not show that reunification with one or both of 

your parents is not viable due to abuse, neglect, abandonment, or a similar 

basis under state law." Citing the Family Part's order expressly declining to 

make such findings, Immigration Services advised plaintiff and her child:

Please provide a copy of a juvenile court order 

declaring that: 1) you are dependent on the court or 

under custody of an agency or department of the state, 

or an individual entity appointed by the court; 2) 

reunification with one or both of your parents is not 

viable due to abuse, neglect, abandonment, or a 

similar basis under state law; and 3) it would not be in 

your best interest to be returned to your or your 

parent's country of nationality or last habitual 

residence. 

In response, plaintiff and her child filed a motion in the Family Part 

seeking an amendment to the previous order. After determining he was 

authorized to hear the motion by Rule 4:50, which sets forth circumstances 
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under which a court may relieve a party from a final judgment or order, the 

second Family Part judge denied the motion "because death alone does not 

equate to abandonment under New Jersey law." The judge found that the 

father's murder was not a willful forsaking of the child, a requisite for 

abandonment under New Jersey law. Plaintiff filed this appeal.

On appeal, plaintiff raises a single point:

THE CHILD IN THIS CASE QUALIFIES FOR 

RELIEF ON THE GROUNDS OF ABANDONMENT 

OR OTHER SIMILAR BASIS UNDER NEW 

JERSEY LAW.

Our review of "[f]inal determinations made by the trial court sitting in a 

non-jury case [is] limited and well-established[.]" Seidman v. Clifton Sav. 

Bank, 205 N.J. 150, 169 (2011). The court's findings of fact are "binding on 

appeal when supported by adequate, substantial, credible evidence." Cesare v. 

Cesare, 154 N.J. 394, 411-12 (1998). If a trial court's findings are not 

supported by adequate, substantial, credible evidence, and resolution of a 

critical issue requires a more complete record, a remand for the development 

of the record is appropriate. See In re Decision on CAA 47-2007, 209 N.J. 

335, 337 (2009) (citing State v. Moore, 180 N.J. 459, 460 (2004)). A trial 

judge's "interpretation of the law and the legal consequences that flow from 
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established facts are not entitled to any special deference." Manalapan Realty 

v. Twp. Comm., 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995).

Here, the trial court's determination that death alone does not equate to 

abandonment under New Jersey does not settle the question of whether 

reunification with the father is not possible due to abuse, neglect, 

abandonment, or a similar basis. That question cannot be adequately answered 

based on the inadequate record before us. The record is devoid of any 

evidence surrounding the father's death, aside from the brief mention it was 

due to "pervasive gang violence." We do not know from the record before us, 

for example, whether the father was an active participant in a gang, engaged in 

illegal activity, and was perhaps killed during gang warfare, or whether he was 

an innocent victim. The details are important to the ultimate determination.

The term "abandonment" is statutorily defined:

Abandonment of a child shall consist in any of the 

following acts by anyone having the custody or 

control of the child: (a) willfully forsaking a child; (b) 

failing to care for and keep the control and custody of 

a child so that the child shall be exposed to physical or 

moral risk without proper and sufficient protection; (c) 

failing to care for and keep the control and custody of 

a child so that the child shall be liable to be supported 

and maintained at the expense of the public, or by 

child caring societies or private persons not legally 

chargeable with its or their care, custody and control.
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[N.J.S.A. 9:6-1.]

Evident from the statutory language is that the term abandonment is 

broader than willfully forsaking the child. Moreover, the findings a Family 

Court must make when considering an SIJ-related matter include whether 

reunification with the father is not possible due to abuse, neglect, 

abandonment, or a similar basis.

The phrase "or a similar basis" adds breadth to the inquiry. In that 

regard, N.J.S.A. 9:2-9, entitled "Parents or custodian of child unfit; action in 

Superior Court, Chancery Division, Family Part," provides:

When the parents of any minor child or the parent or 

other person having the actual care and custody of any 

minor child are grossly immoral or unfit to be 

intrusted with the care and education of such child, or 

shall neglect to provide the child with proper 

protection, maintenance and education, or are of such 

vicious, careless or dissolute habits as to endanger the 

welfare of the child or make the child a public charge, 

or likely to become a public charge; or when the 

parents of any minor child are dead or cannot be 

found, and there is no other person, legal guardian or 

agency exercising custody over such child; it shall be 

lawful for any person interested in the welfare of such 

child to institute an action in the Superior Court, 

Chancery Division, Family Part, in the county where 

such minor child is residing, for the purpose of having 

the child brought before the court, and for the further 

relief provided by this chapter. The court may 

proceed in the action in a summary manner or 

otherwise.
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That the declaration, "death alone does not equate to abandonment," is 

too narrow a focus is illustrated by the hypothetical death of a father who 

commits suicide. Has he neglected or abandoned his children, willfully 

forsaken them, failed to care for and keep control and custody of them so that 

they shall be liable to be supported and maintained at the expense of the 

public, or by child caring societies or private persons not legally chargeable 

with their care, custody and control?

Obviously, the case before us does not involve suicide. Yet, if plaintiff's 

child's father knowingly and actively participated in gang activity marked by 

pervasive violence, particularly violent activity that exposed him to a high risk 

of serious injury or death, he may well have failed to care for and keep control 

and custody of the child so that the child shall be liable to be supported and 

maintained at the expense of the public; or perhaps failed to care for and keep 

the control and custody of the child so that the child shall be exposed to 

physical or moral risk without proper and sufficient protection; or, perhaps 

more significant, prevented reunification due to conduct having a similar 

basis.

These inquiries cannot be answered based on the record before us. That 

is not the fault of the Family Part judge, considering the record before him. 
10 A-3938-18T2

The record before us is scant, as we presume it was in the Family Part. 

Perhaps there is something in the trial record, not included in the appellate 

record, that demonstrates the father's homicide was nothing more than the 

profoundly tragic murder of an innocent man. However, given the conceivably 

unimaginable consequences that may flow from the Family Part fact-finding, 

we deem it appropriate to remand this matter so that the child has the 

opportunity to develop an appropriate record on which to make the case for SIJ 

status. Cf. In re Decision on CAA 47-2007, 209 N.J. at 337. 

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.