Emergency Planning with Parents who Fear Deportation
Update November 8, 2024: As history repeats itself with the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, the threat of mass deportations is all too real. This website has information about emergency planning for parents who fear deportation. It also includes links to guided interviews in English and Spanish that will provide advocates and families with instructions on how to create emergency planning documents. (This project and website were created in 2017 by CUNY Law School alums, professors, students, and other advocates and activists in response to the threat of detention and deportation of people who were undocumented.)
If you are a family member, immigration advocate, or a parent of minor children who fears the possibility of deportation, click on one of the links below, it will take you to a “guided interview” where you can learn more about New York advance planning documents, start the emergency planning process, and if you choose, create advance planning documents.
What is emergency planning and why is it important?
- When a parent is detained or deported, emergency planning can avoid the possibility that their children are placed with the state.
- Emergency planning empowers families to choose who will care for their children and who will be able to make important decisions over their children’s care in their absence.
- Some key information about emergency planning:
- Emergency planning is done in advance.
- Documents created for the purposes of emergency planning can be created without having to go to court.
- Parents can always change or revoke (cancel) the document.
- The documents we will discuss do not change a parent’s legal rights to their children or people under their care.
- The person chosen as the caretaker, guardian, or agent for the parent’s children will not act unless the parent has been detained or deported.
- For example: in the case of a parent’s detention or deportation, their minor children may need protection with the following documents, which can be created using the guided interview:
- Temporary Care & Custody: Someone to make temporary decisions over the children’s daily routines, school related decisions, and routine medical decisions.
- Standby Guardian: Someone to care of children long-term.
- Power of Attorney: Someone to make financial decisions only for their children and/or for other family members, for example paying bills, signing leases, and using bank accounts.
Special thanks to all the CUNY Law students, alums, and other advocates, and our developer partners at Afterpattern.
New Advance Planning Laws Help Immigrant Parents: Standby Guardian & Temp Care & Custody
(Click below for new Designation of Standby Guardian form)
Standby Guardian Designation Form Admin Separation
Designation of Standby Guardian (updated July 2018)
On June 27, 2018 Gov. Cuomo signed two important bills to help parents at risk of arrest, detention, deportation, or removal due to immigration status make plans in advance for the care, custody, and guardianship of their children “just in case.”
NY Standby Guardian Law
The NY Standby Guardian law now includes parents (or legal guardians) at risk of “administrative separation” due to immigration status, and will enable parents to name a Standby Guardian who will be able to act for 60 days after the “triggering” event (arrest, detention, deportation, removal) before petitioning the court.
A parent can name a Standby Guardian (and an alternate) by completing a Standby Guardian form before two witnesses.
“Administrative separation” refers to a federal immigration matter and means the parent or legal guardian’s arrest, detention, incarceration, deportation, or removal; or official communication by federal, state, or local “authorities” about immigration enforcement that gives reasonable notice that care and supervision of the child may be interrupted or cannot be provided.
After the Standby Guardian receives papers showing “administrative separation” and the consent of the parent (signed by 2 witnesses other than the Standby Guardian), the person named Standby Guardian can then file a petition in Surrogate’s Court (not Family Court) asking a judge to appoint them as Guardian for the children.
A parent (or legal guardian) can also petition the Surrogate’s Court (not Family Court) to appoint a Standby Guardian, who will have the authority to act only if necessary.
The law now authorizes the court to not have a hearing and appoint a guardian ad litem or attorney for the children to report on whether the appointment is in the child’s best interests.
Temporary Care & Custody: “Designation of Person in Parental Relation”
Gov. Cuomo also signed into law a bill that allows a person designated as temporary caretaker for children to act for 12 months (they used to only be able to act for 6 months). The parent can make the designation activate only if necessary if the parent is detained or deported. This temporary care and custody form is formally called a “Designation of Person in Parental Relation.” A parent can renew the temporary care and custody designation every 12 months by signing the form before a notary public. (The person designation by the parent also has to sign the form.)
These new laws will make it easier for parents to plan in advance for their children by naming a Standby Guardian and designating a temporary caregiver “just in case.”
“Entitled to the freedom to say goodbye.”
While this decision, issued on January 29, 2018, will not alone protect Ravi Ragbir from removal, Judge Forrest delivered a scathing indictment of our government’s cruel enforcement of immigration laws.
“It ought not to be-and it has never before been-that those who have lived without incident in this country for years are subjected to treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from
streets, home, and work. And sent away. We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it.”Ragbir-v-Sessions-III-et-al
NY Emergency/Advance Planning Tools for Parents
These are the main documents parents can use to create an advance plan and are available on this site.
Advance Planning Documents for A Child’s “Person”
- Temporary Care & Custody: Designation of Person in Parental Relation (English & Spanish)(Complete English form & follow instructions on form)
- Designation of Standby Guardian
- Designation of Guardian of Minor Children
- Waiver of Process, Renunciation, or Consent to Guardianship
Advance Planning Documents to Manage Property for a Child
- New York State Power of Attorney (Statutory Gifts Rider not included)
- Designation of Custodian under N.Y. Uniform Transfers to Minors Act
- Representative Payee for Social Security Benefits
Planificacion Anticipada un el Consulado de Ecuador
http://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/consulado-de-ecuador-en-queens-capacita-compatriotas-sobre-acciones-en-caso-de-ser-separados-de-sus-hijos-menores-por-motivos-migratorios/
Women’s Refuge Commission: Resources for Families Facing Deportation & Separation
The Women’s Refugee Commission has excellent guides and reports to help parents who want to plan for the care of their children here.
The materials emphasize that the particular planning documents, tools, and court procedures described are not state specific, so it is important to get information and complete documents that are legally recognized in the parent’s home state.
Video of 4.1.17 Training: Family Advance Planning for Immigrants at Risk of Deportation
April 1, 2017 – Family Advance Planning For Immigrants At Risk of Deportation: Training for CUNY School of Law Alums & Students at CUNY School of Law with presentations from Prof. Joe Rosenberg (’86), Sasha Herzig (’12), and Lisa Parisio (’15).
The January 25, 2017 executive orders on immigration enforcement effectively put over 11 million people living in the U.S. at risk of detention and deportation. As a result, parents, caregivers, and others are left exposed to catastrophic legal consequences if they are suddenly separated from their children or lose control of their assets.
CUNY School of Law is mobilizing to help immigrants at risk and their families in New York. On April 1, 2017 more than 50 alumni and students attended an interactive training at the law school on advance planning documents and tools for people who are undocumented, including the temporary care of children, designation of a guardian, New York power of attorney, and other legal forms. The training included cross-cultural lawyering awareness to help participants advise and counsel families and individuals forced to confront these difficult decisions.
Following the training, participants signed up to staff at least one walk-in community legal clinic we have organized, where alumni and law students will work together to assist parents.
For more information:
cunyisplanningwithparents@law.cuny.edu
Pew Research: Immigration
- 9. News influencers on X (formerly Twitter) November 18, 2024
- 8. News influencers on TikTok November 18, 2024
