Deportation Prevention Advice

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Reaching out to my flist here--anyone have any ideas?

My daughter's best friend Courtney's family took in a friend of their son's. His mother died, and his father abandoned him--sent him on a bus to Courtney's mom (who had moved from Las Vegas to Minnesota, but when they lived in Las Vegas the boy mostly lived with them).

The kid just turned 16. Turns out, he would've had to have been adopted at 15...which Courtney's mom VERY much wants. They were unable to accomplish that before his birthday thanks primarily to his father (who now can't be found), and now he is facing deportation to the Philipines.

He is 16. He has no family here but Courtney's, he has no family there. And, he is gay.

Any advice on how to keep him here would be appreciated. He has a lawyer and they are trying to do anything and everything they can but our government thinks it is more important to send a 16-year-old gay young man with no family or skills to a country he hasn't been to since he was a child.

Thanks flist--I have no idea how this kid can be saved and he is terrified, beyond terrified. I am heartsick for them all.

Comments

[alba17.livejournal.com]

This is a terrible situation, but I'm afraid it's not uncommon for people to be deported back to a country in which they've never really lived after living in the US for decades. I don't know anything about getting legal status for children abandoned by their parents, and I haven't been involved in immigration law for a long time, but these would be my questions if this boy came to me for advice:

1) How long has the boy been in the US?
2) What was his parents' immigration status? (illegal, I assume) How long were they in the US and how did they enter? Were they under deportation orders? Was there any possibility of applying for political asylum for them, assuming they had no other legal status in the US?
3) Is there any history of abuse or neglect prior to the father abandoning him?
4) I would research applying for asylum for him, but I don't know how realistic that is. I've only dealt with political and religious asylum, and never for a child - when I was practicing this kind of law, they didn't give asylum to gay people simply for being gay. I don't know what the law is now. Asylum claims for children who haven't really lived in the country they're being deported to strike me as problematic, since usually you have to prove an individualized fear of persecution. But I don't really know anything about asylum for kids.

There might be special immigration provisions for these kinds of situations, where a child has been abandoned by parents, that I don't know about. One of the comments above indicated this. Hopefully his lawyer is investigating all the possible defenses to deportation and will contact your congressperson and Senator. (It's an immigration lawyer, right? If not, they should contact the American Immigration Lawyers Association to get a referral.)

Welcome to the crazy world of American immigration law.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Thanks Alba darling--I am passing all this on, every little bit. There's much I don't know about the situation (like how old he was when they came here).

There IS history of neglect--the mother apparently left them both long before she died, and the father came into and left over 2-3 years. Sigh.

I didn't know you were a lawyer! *straightens up*

Thanks for everything!