ILAP Testimony in Support of LD 320: An Act To Provide the Right to Counsel for Juveniles and Improve Due Process for Juveniles

Testimony of Julia Brown, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project In Support of LD 320: An Act To Provide the Right to Counsel for Juveniles and Improve Due Process for Juveniles

Senator Carney, Representative Harnett and distinguished members of the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary, thank you for the opportunity to write in strong support of LD 320.

My name is Julia Brown. I am the Advocacy and Outreach Director at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP). ILAP is Maine’s only statewide nonprofit provider of immigration law and related legal aid to Maine’s low-income residents. Each year, ILAP serves over 3,000 individuals statewide, coming from approximately 100 countries around the world. On behalf of ILAP and our clients, I ask the Committee to vote “ought to pass” on LD 320, otherwise known as “An Act To Provide the Right to Counsel for Juveniles and Improve Due Process for Juveniles.”

Black and brown kids, many of whom are also immigrants, are stopped and arrested more often by law enforcement than their white peers. Many immigrant youth have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, due to anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies as well as fears of immigration enforcement and concerns about immigration status of themselves and family.* Behaviors stemming from these fears and trauma are more likely to be criminalized in non-white children. In fact, research shows that Black boys as young as ten are “more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime.”**

Once a noncitizen child has been arrested or convicted of an offense, immigration agencies will see the arrest, adjudication, or conviction, if the child ever applies for an immigration benefit, like a green card or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Even a simple arrest could lead to complications in or denial of a youth’s immigration application. It does not matter if an arrest or deferred disposition does not show up on a background check – a student must disclose an arrest on every immigration application. One arrest could be used as evidence to deny a student’s application for immigration status.

For these reasons, it is essential that Maine stops prosecuting children under the age of 12, and that children are provided with counsel throughout their entire interaction with the criminal legal system. Immigrant children need legal counsel to ensure that collateral consequences to their immigration status are considered in any legal proceeding.

I urge you to vote “ought to pass” on LD 320. Thank you for your time.

*Collier, Lorna, American Psychological Association, Helping immigrant children heal, Mar. 2015, Vol 46, No. 3, available at https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/03/immigrant-children.

**American Psychological Association, Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Study Shows, Mar. 6, 2014, available at https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older.

A PDF version of this statement is available here.