The Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, or SIJS, offers protections for immigrant children who have been abused, abandoned or neglected, allowing them to stay in this country legally and granting them a pathway to permanent residence and ultimately citizenship. Authorized by Congress in 1990, SIJS has helped thousands of young immigrants over the years.

In April 2018, the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services began rejecting SIJS applications from thousands of young New Yorkers, threatening their legal status. Legal Aid’s Immigration Law Unit filed a lawsuit against the federal government in June 2018, advocating on behalf of those who had been unlawfully denied SIJS protections. A judge ruled in Legal Aid’s favor, stating that the Trump administration had broken the law and wrongfully denied young immigrants the protections they deserve. This granted injunctive relief to more than 6,600 immigrant youth who were given the opportunity to seek permanent residence and citizenship.

That same year, LegalAid’s Juvenile Rights trial team successfully challenged and changed New York City’s decades-old practice of seeking warrants for the arrest of youth whose only infraction was running away from their foster care placements—recognizing the significant harm caused by arresting already traumatized children. Legal Aid also challenged the City’s authority to return youth to juvenile facilities for alleged violations of the terms of their early release. Legal Aid’s success in this case forced New York City to immediately release a dozen youth unlawfully held in juvenile detention.