Wards Qualify For Status As Special Immigrant Juveniles Under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 602 As Well As Dependents Under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 300.

Petitioner in a writ of mandate proceeding was born in Mexico in 1995,brought to the United States by his mother when he was five years old and never returned to Mexico. Three years later, his mother abandoned him; she died in 2010. He got in trouble with the law, was declared a ward of the juvenile court pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 602, in other words a delinquent, placed in foster care, and later placed on probation.  He was thereafter transferred to an Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Immigration and Nationality Act [8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J)] provides “abused, neglected, and abandoned unaccompanied minors . . . a process that allows them to become permanent legal residents.”  These Special Immigrant Juveniles [SIJ] must have been declared dependent on a juvenile court located in the United States.  In the present case, petitioner’s immigration lawyer requested the boy be given Special Immigrant Juveniles status. The superior court found petitioner did not qualify because he had been declared a ward [delinquent] and had not been declared a dependent of the court pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 300. The appellate court granted the petition for writ of mandate, and ordered the trial court to make findings that would classify petitioner as a Special Immigrant Juvenile.  (Eddie E. v. Sup. Ct. (The People of the State of California)  (Cal. App. Fourth Dist., Div. 3; January 29, 2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 622, [164 Cal.Rptr.3d 435].)