The Legal Aid Society brought this class action lawsuit to challenge the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ policy of denying Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) to abused, abandoned and neglected youth in New York between the ages of 18 and 21 because they were over 18 years old. SIJS is a form of humanitarian immigration relief that provides a path to legal permanent residence and citizenship.

On March 15, 2019, a district court judge found USCIS’s Over-18 denial policy unlawful, and, in May 2019, granted final declaratory and injunctive relief to more than 6,600 RFM class members statewide. As a result of the litigation, thousands of SIJS petitions have been re-adjudicated. Read the practice advisory here.