T Visa Practice Updates & Best Practices for Children and Youth

This presentation was part of day 2 of the 5th Annual Symposium.

This presentation will cover the elements of child labor trafficking claims, specifically addressing how to recognize, screen, and develop labor trafficking cases for unaccompanied children. The presentation will include a discussion of screening child labor issues like those discussed in the New York Times expose (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html) for T and U visa eligibility. The presentation will also discuss the current trend—the “recycling” of children (labor decoy cases) where young children are used by a nonparent adult to try to cross the border as a family unit. Other topics to be covered in this presentation include how to prove the physical presence requirement primarily through documenting the child’s ongoing trauma from the trafficking and their access to critical social services and counseling in the United States, as well as the reporting element and how to avoid having to report the trafficking (again) and/or cooperate with law enforcement where the child disclosed what happened to their ORR clinician or CBP officials at the border. The presentation will discuss how to identify flags for labor trafficking in child clients, ask the right follow up questions, and gather evidence to develop a claim.