Dozens of immigrant children in KC face fast-tracked deportation after losing protections

They’re the immigrant children long considered to be the most vulnerable. Many traveled to the U.S. alone, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. Some were trafficked for labor or sex. A state judge has ruled that each of them has experienced serious abuse, neglect or abandonment and is in need of the state’s care. For decades, the U.S. treated these foreign-born youth from a child protection perspective. Policy, law and federal funding acknowledged their unique needs. A special immigration status was available for them, which opened up the pathway to a green card. And while their cases moved through the country’s clogged-up immigration system, policy gave them protections from being deported. But many of those protections have disappeared under President Donald Trump’s administration, affecting up to 150,000 children nationwide. And now, at least two dozen such children in the Kansas City area are in active removal proceedings and could soon be ordered deported.

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