All classes of illegal aliens are not equal, a federal judge in California has ruled, I think appropriately.
The decision, oddly, says that one group that has no path to legalization should be treated better than one that does have such a path, as was reported by Law360 , in an article that failed to notice that quirk.
The group favored by the judge consists of T-1 applicants, aliens (mostly illegal), of all ages, who have had the guts to report that they were trafficked illegally and are co-operating with law enforcement.
The other group, all on their way to green cards, consists of special immigrant juveniles under the age of 21 who are wards of juvenile courts, is unfavored on the grounds that they had been abused by their presumably illegal alien parents; that these young people have a path to amnesty is an anomaly in the immigration law, as we have noted in the past.
The question before the judge was: Should the juveniles be treated as well as the T-1 applicants when it comes to the speed with which USCIS processes both groups’ applications for employment authorization documents (EADs)? USCIS apparently handles the T-1 applications for EADs faster than it does those of the special juveniles, which the judge found to be a non-issue.
Federal Judge Otis D. Wright pointed out the difference in ages between the two groups, saying that the T-1 applicants were of all ages and were seeking jobs, while the younger group of special juveniles were all under 21, an age when they might well be in school.
The reporting made no note of the fact that the T-1s are being useful to the nation, often at some risk to themselves, and that the juveniles are not.
It should be borne in mind that both of these sub-categories are rather small ones. We are now seeing more than one million new illegal aliens a year; in different, recent 12-month periods there were 3,775 applications for T-1 nonimmigrant status, and 5,546 special immigrant juveniles granted immigration status.
The youngsters were represented by a team of a dozen lawyers; the government got along with six Justice Department employees. The case is Casa Libre/Freedom House et al. v. Mayorkas et al., case number 2:22-cv-01510, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.