Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is begining to lower, comes a pause in the day’s occupation, that is known as the children’s hour.
H. W. Longfellow
Evening in Balboa Park in San Diego marks the beginning of a different children’s hour- a time when homeless children move off the streets to find a “spot” for the night. This pause casts ominous shadows at dusk and is a prelude to a host of dangers
No one really knows how many children seek refuge in the park each night; nor how many are undocumented- without identities. Certainly
, some have traveled from the interior of Mexico or Central America and slipped across the border. What is known is that they hadn’t anticipated life on the street. They came with dreams of good fortune and a future, not of spending each night in the throes for survival-easy mark for those who prey on the vulnerable.
It is estimated that over six thousand unaccompanied children are deported to Mexico each year from the United States. In San Diego, unlike the children from Central America, Mexican children are immediately returned to the Mexican consulate in Tijuana- many return again and become repeat crossers. However difficult life on the streets can be in San Diego, it does not compare to the dangers and uncertainties of their life in Mexico.
In the main, these children are invisible, but they are not the only invisible children in San Diego. An unknown number of children born abroad and brought to the United States as infants or young children, grow up here in the United States believing this to be their homeland- but they too are strangers, undocumented aliens, and deportable. Too many caseworkers know the story of these children who when they reach the age of eighteen become especially vulnerable. They have lived their lifetimes in the shadows- often with siblings who enjoy all the benefits of citizenship.
At a recent meeting initiated by CCLC, Staff Attorney Elizabeth Camarena, met with representatives from agencies working with abused and abandoned children in San Diego County, to assess the legal needs of those with immigration issues. The discussion revealed that currently there are some seven thousand children under the jurisdiction of the Dependency Court in San Diego County Of these neglected children, only forty have been referred by their social workers for special juvenile visas. Participants are concerned that there is no system in place to identify the children in foster care who have immigration issues.
Early identification of undocumented abused and abandoned children is critical. Unless they are identified and visa petitions filed before their eighteenth birthday they “age out”. Although they may have come to the United States as infants, these young adults have no prospects for the future. Without social security numbers, they are unemployable, and cannot attend university or get a driver’s license. If discovered, they are deportable which means deportation to a country whose language they may not know and separation from the only world they have known. They become aliens in their alleged homelands.
Last May at the Trolley Station in San Diego immigration officers arrested three teenagers on their way to school. The children were summarily deported before their parents were aware of the arrests. The San Diego community was shocked by what happened, but practitioners were all too aware that immigration laws are unforgiving even when it means separating children from families.
Casa Cornelia Law Center’s Program for abused and abandoned children provides some hope for these children but staff attorneys are concerned that there is a significant number of children who could be helped if agencies cooperated and identified them before they aged out.
Since 2000 Casa Cornelia has been providing legal services to all unrepresented unaccompanied children in removal proceedings in San Diego. As a consequence, children arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Border Patrol as they attempt entry are the fortunate ones. Last year
Casa Cornelia represented one hundred eighty-two children in deportation proceedings, facilitating their safe reunification with family members in the U.S. or in their homelands. In situations where the children’s safety could not be guaranteed, Casa Cornelia successfully filed visa petitions or asylum claims.
Suamhirs
If there were such a thing as a “poster child” for Casa Cornelia’s Children’s Program, it would be Suamhirs.
Suamhirs was severely abused by his physician father in Honduras; he still bears the scars of this abuse-physically and emotionally His mother could do nothing to protect him or his siblings from his father. She, too, was a victim having been abducted as a young woman. She was one of a number of women kidnapped by the father and Suamhirs is one of his thirty-four children.
At age twelve, Suamhirs dropped out of school to sell creams on the buses. One day, he is unclear when, a stranger approached him, lured him aside, and assaulted him. In time the perpetrator was arrested and convicted on Suamhirs’ testimony but he then escaped. The police warned Suamhirs’ mother that the boy was in danger, so at age sixteen, Suamhirs fled to the United States.
The journey took him thirty-five days. From Honduras to Guatemala, he took a bus from there and crossed the river into Chiapas, Mexico. He waited, like many others, to jump the train headed el norte. He belted himself to the side of the train and traveled standing up between cars. When the train stopped he jumped off to find something to eat. He continued to Oaxaca where he ran out of money and was forced to beg for food. For a week he worked for a bus company earning enough to buy a bus ticket to Monterrey
From there Suamhirs followed others who were planning to cross the Rio Grande into Texas. Because he had no money, the coyote allowed him to join the group only if he carried the rafts. Suamhirs was forced to swim the river- the rafts were for paying customers. He remembers the river being green and cold.
At about 5:00 a.m. on January 14, 2007, they reached the other side. They dashed across a freeway and were taken to a safe house. The coyotes brought one bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken for the group but there was nothing for Suamhirs. He was sixteen, alone and hungry.
Somehow he managed to get from Texas to Los Angeles and then to San Diego where, after his arrival, Suamhirs lived with recently acquired friends. Then he spent time at a shelter for homeless youths, Storefront. Storefront brought him to the attention of Casa Cornelia Law Center and staff attorney, Sue Lake. Under her guidance, Suamhirs’ mother agreed to give up legal custody, enabling him to be placed in foster care. Sue prepared his application for a special immigrant visa. Suamhirs was also assigned a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) by Voices for Children. He thrived. He was granted Legal Permanent Residency in January 2009.
After aging out of foster care Suamhirs volunteered as an intern with Voices for Children telling his success story and promoting the work of the organization. In June he was awarded an internship with Casa Cornelia Law Center where he assists with the Unaccompanied Children’s Program.
Lisa’s Case
My question caught her off guard, “Lisa, what case, of all your cases, do you remember most vividly?” Lisa was just finishing her first year as a staff attorney and I was curious.
“You know, all of my cases have made an impact one way or another. I thought my Somali and Ethiopian cases were horrible until I got a transgender case. I cried the whole time I was drafting my direct exam questions.”
A long pause and then, “I think the most memorable case was my two Palestinian sisters born and raised in Saudi Arabia.” Lisa then shared with me the story of two Palestinian teenagers from Saudi Arabia.
They were just youngsters when they resisted the oppressive regime that denied women basic human rights. As young teenagers both openly resisted the oppressive laws burdening women. They refused to wear their veils in public, insisted that they attend secondary school and meet friends after school when such behavior was not merely frowned upon but would precipitate their arrest. Secretly they read American authors and vicariously lived an open and free life.
They were humiliated and ashamed. The women in the family were vehement in their anger at the young girl. She, Shyma Eweedah, was severely beaten, and locked in her room for days. Her sister, Asma, refused to participate in any preliminaries that might remotely lead to an arranged marriage. She was deliberately rude to a candidate presented to her, refusing to engage in conversation.
When the older of the sisters at age fourteen was forced into marriage with a much older man, she begged her husband to divorce her. He graciously agreed, but the family was less forgiving.
The consequences of their behavior were draconian. They were beaten, burned, tied to their beds, ignored, deprived of food, imprisoned in their rooms and Asma’s nose was broken … by family members. Despite everything, they persevered in their resolve; they would not succumb to the indignities imposed on them as women in Saudi Arabia.
Knowing that their father had regretted being forced to abandon his studies in the United States to comply with arrangements for his marriage, the girls, over a three-year period, begged their father to allow them to visit the United States to investigate opportunities for study
Whether he knew their request was a ruse to leave Saudi Arabia is unknown. Maybe he thought the trip would placate them but he finally gave consent. They were only nineteen and twenty years old when they boarded the plane that would take them away from Saudi Arabia forever.