Appeal Seeks Relief for Children Asylum-Seekers

The law firm of Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, through the coordination of the Barbara McDowell Foundation's High Impact Litigation Project, joined to seek relief for three children asylum-seekers who have received faulty removal orders under the Remain in Mexico/Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program. The appeal primarily involves due process challenges to the children’s removal orders, on the basis that the immigration judge on the border who adjudicated their mother’s asylum case did not give the children an adequate hearing on their own asylum claims. The appeal seeks new removal proceedings for the children on the basis that they are now unaccompanied immigrant children who are entitled to additional protections under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).

In September 2021, Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition filed petitions for review in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 2022, Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition secured relief for three children asylum-seekers who received faulty removal orders under the Remain in Mexico/Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program. Days after Eversheds Sutherland and CAIR Coalition filed their opening brief in the children’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals case, the Government agreed to settlement. The Board of Immigration Appeals subsequently granted the parties’ motions to reopen and terminate the cases, which vacated the children’s prior removal orders and allow the children to proceed with their own asylum claims, along with those of their father. This result is more favorable than relief the children could have obtained from prevailing in their Fifth Circuit case, which primarily involved due process challenges to the children’s removal orders, on the basis that the immigration judge on the border who adjudicated their mother’s asylum case did not give the children an adequate hearing on their own asylum claims.