HOUSTON, Oct 4 — A one-year-old toddler stumbles around an immigration court in Louisiana, crying. He throws a toy that nearly hits a prosecutor.
The judge instructs the baby and his mother, age 17, to apply for asylum. But the teenager can barely focus on what he is saying.
Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of a group that provides legal support for unaccompanied minors, described this scene, which she witnessed in August.
“This child is being expected to file her own application, also figure out how to file things for her one-year-old baby, while living through the distress of being a detained young mother,” Avila-Cimpeanu told AFP.
President Donald Trump’s administration has choked off funding for organisations that have years of experience assisting unaccompanied minors, bringing in substitutes that are under-equipped and unqualified, advocates say.
