The Reality of Current US Immigration Policy 49 Closer to home, at a fraction of the cost of prolonged incarceration, the administration could replace family detention pending a final immigration decision with supervised family release and a much speedier and better administered asylum process. As noted, previous efforts to do this have yielded excellent results. Recent data from the Department of Justice shows that 89 percent of all asylum applicants attended their final court hearing to receive a decision on their application,50 and among families and unaccompanied children who have access to legal representation, “compliance” with immigration court obligations is 98 percent.51 The United States could learn from its peers – other wealthy migration destination states addressing large-scale child migration – by providing legal representation and guardianship to unaccompanied children to ensure simpler and speedier court proceedings and more rational and just living arrangements. Guardians could ensure that children are accommodated in safety, with families or in childcare facilities, while they await decisions in their cases, and that they have access to appropriate educational and health facilities. Legal representatives could sift meritorious from unmeritorious cases, obviating the need for lengthy and costly court adjournments, negotiating safe returns home where this is in the best interests of the child, and ensuring prompt resolution by other means as appropriate, to the benefit of all parties. No one benefits from the uncertainty, cost, and misery generated by prolonged limbos. Most critically, the United States should accept that, until it is abated by vigorous and effective development investments, the current humanitarian disaster facing children from the Central Triangle countries warrants special immigration policies. Instead of trumpeting the myth that physical or institutional barriers will prevent atrisk children from fleeing, the United States should institute deliberate and regulated policies to facilitate orderly child entry. Many of the unaccompanied children who seek humanitarian entry in the United States have well-founded fears of persecution – they should qualify for refugee status. But the recent executive changes to US policy described earlier have restricted their chances, excluding those threatened by gang violence, for example, from qualifying for asylum. For Central American children fleeing violence who have documented relatives in the United States, there should be refugee processing by US consulates in Central America. This would ensure safe travel, removing children from harm at home and en route. A program to do this that worked successfully was cancelled by the Trump administration.52 It should be reinstated. “Workload and Adjudication Statistics,” United States Department of Justice, February 3, 2020, www.justice.gov/eoir/workload-and-adjudication-statistics. 51 “Priority Immigration Court Cases: Women with Children,” TRAC Immigration, Syracuse University, https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/mwc/. 52 Pierce, Immigration-Related Policy Changes, p. 17. 50 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press