However, the number of children apprehended by the INS each year has soared. In 1999 alone, the INS had 4,600 children in its custody. Many of these children are detained in juvenile correctional facilities because the INS lacks adequate shelter care space. In these prisons, children typically face the same barriers to legal representation and other services as do the adults held in local prisons. Further compounding the difficulties children face, however, is their lack of capacity to understand the proceedings in which they have been placed.
Many children remain unrepresented by counsel.
Immigration law also does not require the appointment of guardians ad litem to unaccompanied children to ensure that their best interests are addressed throughout their immigration proceedings. Many children with valid asylum claims therefore are at risk of deportation. Recommendations Congress should revisit expedited removal by either eliminating it or severely restricting its application to migration emergencies. It should also enact detention reform legislation to ensure that asylum seekers are not unnecessarily detained and that conditions of detention are humane. The INS and Executive Office for Immigration Review should monitor implementation of the gender and children s guidelines, ensure consistent and frequent training of asylum officers and immigration judges under the guidelines, and support the development of U.S. jurisprudence that fully recognizes gender and age-based persecution claims.