US Federal Judge Said Toddlers Can Defend Themselves In Immigration Court

Illegal migration has been a big and increasing problem of the US government. This includes the cases of unaccompanied or undocumented children who are crossing the South American borders.

According to Los Angeles Times, there were 20,445 unaccompanied children that were reported by Customer and Border Patrol crossing the border from October last year until the end of January this year. Those children will be apprehended and processed by CBP right away and sent back to their country.

A deposition from a US federal judge based in Virginia, Jack Weil, said that those unaccompanied and undocumented children migrants can defend themselves in the immigration court without the need of a legal counsel.

Weil said, "I've taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience," he added, "They get it. It's not the most efficient, but it can be done." This deposition of Weil was submitted to the court by the federal government in January.

Harry Reid, a Senate Minority Leader of Nevada and some Democrats have introduced a legislation last month saying that the US government should provide a legal counsel for those children who crossed the border that were unaccompanied or victims of abuse and violence for court hearing.

According to immigrant advocates, these children should not be deported back to their home where there are lots of crime and violence. The advocates wanted these children to have the right to a fair trial in court before getting a decision from immigration court.

As posted by The Washington Post, experts in legal and child-psychology did not agree with Weil's statement that toddlers can defend themselves in court. They said that children at ages 3 to 4 are still in the stage of developing cooperation and communication skills.

Laurence Steinberg who is a psychology professor at Temple University said, "Three- and 4-year-olds do not yet have logical reasoning abilities. It's preposterous, frankly, to think they could be taught enough about immigration law to be able to represent themselves in court."

Spokesperson Lauren Alder Reid said in her statement to LA Times that the administration is in support of providing legal counsel to those illegal youth migrants. The next court hearing regarding this issue will resume on March 24.