Beyond Eligibility: Examining the Challenges in SIJS

Student: Joselyn Serrano Gutierrez

Faculty Mentor: Natalia Villanueva-Nieves

Chicano and Latino Studies

College of Education, Counseling, and Ethnic Studies

My project focuses on some of the most vulnerable immigrants, unaccompanied youth. They are the shadow that hides behind immigration itself. Unaccompanied youth currently have immigration policies such as Special Juvenile Immigrant Policies (SIJS) that benefit them. However, the research behind implementing these policies and their effectiveness is minimal. My project fills the gap by examining the minor immigrants' experience regarding the implementation and effectiveness of current SIJS policy and how other immigration policies changes have a spillover effect to SIJS. I have collected data from the U.S. Department of Labor, scholarly sources and interviews with two immigration attorneys. The interviews represent the experiences of the attorneys and the turnover effect they see of the SIJS policy alone. Furthermore, they shed light on how one change in a general immigration policy such as Asylum has an indirect effect on SIJS applicants. My presentation will show the final results of my project.