May 10, 2024 - Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) alongside 16 of their colleagues called on U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations leaders to ensure the upcoming FY25 government funding bill includes a provision requiring the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to report on the implementation of specialized children’s immigration courts after EOIR announced it would establish them.

“Properly implemented, the Director’s Memorandum could help children understand and participate in their court proceedings by creating accommodations that complement a child’s developmental level. It could also relieve strain on the immigration courts by aggregating these similar cases and streamlining the handling of pending cases of children who have claims awaiting adjudication by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), thereby avoiding duplication of efforts by multiple government agencies,” wrote the senators. “Congress has an important oversight role in ensuring the Memorandum is executed in a robust and meaningful way in the immigration court system.”

The EOIR implementation status report would include the name and number of immigration courts implementing the specialized docket system, the training being provided to judges, and protocols and resources being put in place to ensure unaccompanied minors are properly represented in court.

The text of the letter is available HERE.

The first and only Latina Senator, Senator Cortez Masto has consistently pushed to fix our broken immigration system by balancing critical border security measures with a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, and essential workers. She’s an original cosponsor of the Dream Act to provide relief for DACA recipients, and she’s leading legislation to allow them to work in Congress. She successfully pushed the administration to expand health care access for DACA recipients, and she’s led calls to address delays in DACA renewal applications and make it easier for mixed status families, family caregivers, and hardworking immigrant families to stay together. She is also leading legislation to protect vulnerable immigrant children by fixing the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) program and ending years-long case backlogs.
Source: Senator Catherine Cortez Masto