On June 14, the House Judiciary Committee is marking up a bill misnamed the Protection of Children Act (H.R. 495) which would make children and asylum seekers more vulnerable and decrease meaningful access to the asylum process. Read FCNL’s statement of opposition for the record.

Friends Committee on National Legislation Statement for the Record as it pertains to the House Judiciary Committee Markup of H.R. 495, the Protection of Children Act

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) is led by the call for right relationships among all people – respect for human and civil rights is essential to safeguarding the integrity of our diverse society and the inherent dignity of all human beings. FCNL further embraces the faith principle of welcoming the stranger, and believes the United States’ historic tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants should be restored. The United States is strongest as a nation when we stand together and lift up those most vulnerable in our society. FCNL opposes legislation that revokes critical anti-trafficking protections for children and individuals seeking protection from persecution. FCNL therefore urges members of the House Judiciary Committee to oppose the misnamed Protection of Children Act (H.R. 495).

H.R. 495 would make children and asylum seekers more vulnerable to traffickers and subject them to harmful, unnecessary detention. Rather than protecting each child’s right to due process in asylum proceedings, children from certain non-contiguous countries would no longer have access to screenings with child welfare experts. We know from our faith partners working along the U.S.-Mexico border and in Central America that children and families arriving from Central America are fleeing unimaginable violence. The proposed cursory screenings by border patrol agents – who are neither recruited nor adequately trained for this task – would force children to immediately prove why they are fearful of returning to their home country. This is an unrealistic and cruel expectation given the traumatic journey, language barriers, and the triggering effect of telling a painful story to a uniformed stranger carrying a gun. Moreover, the short turnaround of a hearing within 14 days of this initial screening does not give asylum seekers and victims of trafficking an adequate opportunity to speak with an attorney, learn their legal rights and protections, or meaningfully have their story heard. H.R. 495 also restricts the availability and accessibility of legal counsel for children navigating a complicated system alone by prohibiting Health and Human Services from providing legal representation for unaccompanied children. Children should never have to navigate legal processes alone; especially when the risk is return to a potentially life-threatening situation is 70 percent more likely if the child pursues asylum without legal representation. ^1

Even if a child does successfully navigate these proposed obstacles, H.R. 495 severely limits the child’s ability to be reunited with loved ones. The further requirement for Health and Human Services to provide the Department of Homeland Security with the immigration status of persons given custody of unaccompanied children is detrimental to the best interest of the child. A person’s immigration status has no bearing on their ability to care for a child and - at the expense of the child’s wellbeing - this provision aggressively serves to deport and separate loving family members rather than ensure these children are protected in a safe environment. The alternative is for the child to stay in prolonged Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) custody, remain in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody, or be placed in federally funded foster care. This provision puts some families in the impossible situation of leaving their children with strangers or placing themselves at the risk of deportation.

FCNL urges members of Congress to keep in place asylum processes and protections for victims of trafficking, ensuring the right to due process for each individual; we cannot and should not curb the efficacy of our asylum and parole processes in the ways that H.R. 495 proposes. Revoking any of the protections outlined in the bi-partisan Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) will result in children being returned back into hands of traffickers, gangs, and others who seek to exploit them. U.S. trafficking protections and asylum processes are strong and should only be improved upon, not torn down.