Trump’s Plans for Immigration Violate Internatonal Law: A 500 Word Defense
As of June 6th, 2025, the Trump administration has ordered that the deferred action and work authorization granted to immigrant youth in the US under Special Immigrant Juvenile Status(SIJS) be terminated. This means that any person who qualifies for SIJS is no longer protected from deportation, nor can they work while waiting for visa approval. Many have called this change an act of “cruel and unusual punishment,” considering that most if not all of these people are refugees. It is critical, however, that before condemning the action, we examine the issue from the current administration’s perspective..
From the Trump administration’s standpoint, this policy change reflects a need to slow the growth of postponed immigration cases and curtail the number of undocumented and under-documented people living in the US. Most SIJS cases get backlogged for so long that the recipients in question go about their lives as if they’re already citizens. On top of this, the number of backlogged cases adds even more weight to the already overburdened immigration courts. Numbers-wise, Trump’s approach makes sense. Reduce the number of immigration cases overall, and you reduce the amount of resources expended.
On the other hand, if migrants have not committed any disqualifying acts,refusing to grant them asylum likely falls under the United Nations’ definition of refoulement, which prohibits returning people to countries where they face persecution. This constitutes a violation of international law and human rights. Furthermore, since a sizable portion of SIJS are still children– as of March 2023, 107,693 minors with approved SIJS applications had their cases backlogged– they could not yet apply for a visa to begin with. “Seeking asylum is a long and difficult process under the best of circumstances, and for children without an advocate, the process offers slight chance of success. The reason for this may be due both to the complexity of the system, particularly the exacting circumstances under which asylum may be granted, and the lack of a clear rubric to assess a child’s asylum claim” (Virgil, 2023).
“ A better process would be to apply a uniform criterion, applicable to all unaccompanied children, to establish the underlying findings supporting the SIJS predicate order and to have this accomplished within immigration proceedings that are designed to serve the unique interests of children. Juvenile immigration proceedings can readily be offered under existing enabling statutes for the immigration court system, although the criteria to be applied would need to be developed. The development of new criteria to determine the best interests of a child would be aided by relying on established case law, including the choice of law rules” (Virgil, 2023).
I propose that not only do we reinstate the protections for backlogged SIJS cases, but that violating such terms, including by terminating any protections in the form of policymaking, should be considered a violation of international law and human rights.
