Sonoma County approves legal aid to immigrant children

Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved a plan would tap county attorneys to provide legal help to unaccompanied immigrant children who are in the Bay Area facing deportation proceedings.

The county does not know how many of the children are living here, but the board’s action will allow County Counsel Bruce Goldstein to ask the Bar Association of San Francisco - where the nearest immigration court is located - to refer to them cases of minors in the North Bay. The Public Defender’s Office is also participating in the effort, according to county spokesman Peter Rumble.

Goldstein said county legal offices are helping because under a new federal policy, children are having their cases expedited, giving them little time to find lawyers and build strong cases.

Border patrol agents picked up more than 66,000 unaccompanied children, most of them from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, along the southern U.S. border between Oct. 1, 2013, and the end of last month. They were turned over to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, then underwent medical checks and were given immunizations before being placed in shelters or with relatives and sponsors.

Tuesday’s action did not have costs associated with it, but the county would provide staff time to help children.

“Because the time spent is during the course of the normal work day, there isn’t a direct cost,” Rumble said in an email.

Goldstein estimated he’ll need about five to 10 attorneys in his office to handle a limited amount of cases, the most complicated of which could take up to 60 hours.

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ahartreports.