Nationwide, SIJS is available to immigrants under age 21 who have been abused, abandoned or neglected by one or both parents if a state court finds that it’s against their best interest to be returned to their parents or be sent back to their home country. Implemented by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, the protections increasingly have been used in recent years by minors who arrived unaccompanied at the Mexican border.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 02, 2019 12:56 UTC