Coalition members file lawsuit against USCIS for data on SIJS

On August 18, 2021, The Door and Professor Laila L. Hlass, Coalition members, filed a lawsuit against the United States Citizenship and Immigration  Services (USCIS) seeking expedited processing of a Freedom of Information Act request for agency data on Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) adjudications and applications. The suit, filed by Milbank LLP on behalf of plaintiffs not-for profit The Door and Tulane Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic Co-Director, Laila Hlass, as part of the broader End SIJS Backlog Coalition, follows USCIS’ failure to comply with the plaintiffs’ April 2021 FOIA request for data that is necessary to examine trends in the treatment of immigrant children under the SIJS statute, a matter of urgent importance affecting the well-being of tens of thousands of vulnerable immigrant youths.

Since the filing of the lawsuit, through settlement negotiations, USCIS has provided the Coalition with some of the requested data on the SIJS backlog and SIJS adjudications. This data is reflected in the Coalition’s first report “Any Day They Could Deport Me” and in our new report, “False Hopes”. It is also published and analyzed in great detail in the article “The Double Exclusion of Immigrant Youth” published in the Georgetown Law Journal by Laila L. Hlass, Rachel L. Davidson and Austin Kocher.