SUECARES HAS TWO GOALS:

Angels for Education Scholarship Program

After children emancipate out of the foster care system, they are left to survive on their own. Continued education is costly and to many of these children, college is a dream—not a reality. For this reason, SueCares is creating a scholarship program for children in the foster care system to help make their dreams a reality. Check the Scholarship page  regularly to follow our progress in this important journey.

Child Advocacy

SueCares is an advocate for foreign-born children who are dependents of the court due to abuse or neglect. We provide these children and adoptive U.S. parents with resources to navigate the federal and state court systems. We continue to educate everyone who touches these children’s lives.

This is not about immigrant children. It is about children of illegal immigrants who have been abused and/or abandoned. When children are removed from their homes, the immigration decision is made whether it is in the best interest of the children to send them back to their homeland or to take responsibility for them ourselves and make them dependents of the court.

Children born in the United States have a legal right to an education, driver’s licenses, medical care, employment and all of the other tools that they need to grow up and lead productive lives. All children should have these rights. Yet these rights are denied to children who have entered the country illegally – through no fault of their own. When these children are abused or abandoned by their birth parents and consequently made dependents of the court in order to protect them, they do not have the same rights, the same chance at life.

If a child is a dependent of the court and parental rights have subsequently been terminated, that child will remain in the foster care system until turning 18 years of age unless the child is fortunate enough to be adopted. Federal law does not automatically entitle these children to stay in the United States once they are adopted.

They do not automatically gain legal status by virtue of the fact that they are legally adopted by U.S. citizens. These children are subject to deportation at any time.

While the foster care system takes these children in to protect them, that protection has flaws. These children do not know how to resolve their legal status – most adults find the legal system daunting, much less a child. Unless they are assigned immigration counsel to help them through the process, they will remain illegal. Consequently, when they turn 18, they are still lacking legal status and therefore do not have the same rights as children born in the United States. These rights are necessary in order to become productive adults in the United States.