2/6/18 9th Circuit Court
Last week, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a truly brutal decision, concluding that the Constitution did not require the government to provide a lawyer to a 15-year-old Honduran boy facing deportation.
It appears to be the first case ever to hold that children can represent themselves in court when important legal rights are at stake. That the ruling came in a deportation case involving asylum – where the stakes are incredibly high, the law notoriously complex, and the government pays a trained prosecutor to advocate the child’s deportation – makes the court’s decision even more extreme. The ruling is the latest, and most disappointing, chapter in our long-running effort to obtain fairness for children in immigration court. Key Words: Unaccompanied Minor, ETHICS
