Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves a teenager, B.A.A.R., who was born in El Salvador in 2001 and fled to the United States in 2018. His aunt, Lucia, took him into her home in Las Vegas and asked a Nevada court to make her his legal guardian. She also asked the court to make a special set of factual findings under a Nevada statute (NRS 3.2203) that would let B.A.A.R. apply to federal immigration authorities for "Special Immigrant Juvenile" (SIJ) status - a federal program that can lead to lawful permanent residency for certain undocumented young people who cannot safely be reunified with a parent. To qualify for SIJ status, federal law requires a state court first to make three findings: (1) the child has been placed in the custody of an individual or agency, (2) reunification with one or both parents is not viable because of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or a similar reason, and (3) it is not in the child's best interest to be returned to his country of origin. The state court does not decide whether the child actually gets SIJ status - that is up to federal immigration officials. The state court's job is just to gather the facts. Lucia argued that returning B.A.A.R. to his mother Maria in El Salvador was not viable because Maria allowed B.A.A.R. to be exposed to violence by her live-in boyfriend, Jose, who had physically abused B.A.A.R.'s sister and threatened to kill B.A.A.R. She also argued Maria's poverty meant she could not properly provide for him. The district court refused to make the requested findings. The judge wrote that he would need a "very specific and detailed history of neglect" to find that reunification was not viable based on poverty, and that a lack of financial resources is "never a sufficient basis to terminate the relationship." The judge also pointed out that Maria and Jose had separated months before B.A.A.R. fled. The Court of Appeals reversed for two main reasons. First, the district court used the wrong legal yardstick. By treating the case as if it were a proceeding to terminate a parent's rights, the judge demanded a higher level of proof than the law requires. The Court of Appeals held that someone asking for SIJ predicate findings only has to show those findings are justified by a "preponderance of the evidence" - meaning more likely than not - which is the ordinary standard in civil cases. SIJ findings are not the same as terminating parental rights; they do not cut off the parent-child relationship. Second, the Court of Appeals said the district court appears to have misunderstood what "abuse or neglect" means under the statute. A parent who fails to protect a child from someone else's harmful conduct can themselves be guilty of abuse or neglect under Nevada law. So even though Jose was the one directly threatening B.A.A.R., Maria's failure to intervene could itself qualify. And the fact that Jose had left the home before B.A.A.R. fled does not erase that history - the court must look at the entire history of the parent-child relationship. The case goes back to the district court to reconsider Lucia's request using the correct, lower standard of proof and the proper definition of abuse or neglect.

This case is about how an undocumented child living in Nevada can ask a state court to make the findings she needs to apply to the federal government for "Special Immigrant Juvenile" (SIJ) status -- a category of immigration relief for children who cannot safely return to a parent in their home country. To apply, the child first needs a state court to make three specific findings. Only after those findings are made can the child go to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and ask for SIJ status itself. The state judge does not decide whether the child gets SIJ status; the judge just makes findings that the federal agency will later review. A.A. was born in El Salvador in 2004. Her mother, Amaya, came to the United States when A.A. was two. A.A. lived with her father until, according to the opinion, he "kicked her out" when she was ten, after which she lived with her grandmother. A.A. says her father emotionally and physically abused her. At twelve, A.A. moved to Las Vegas to live with her mother, stepfather, and half-siblings. She does not want to return to El Salvador. Amaya filed a custody case in district court. The father did not respond, so the court entered a default and gave Amaya sole physical custody and both parents joint legal custody. Amaya then asked the same court to make the three SIJ findings. The district court refused. It said: (1) granting Amaya custody was not the same as "appointing" her to have custody, and (2) Amaya had not shown that A.A. could not reunify with both parents -- only with her father. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held, first, that when a Nevada district court grants a parent physical custody of a child, that order does place the child under the custody of "a person appointed by the court" for purposes of the SIJ findings. Second, the court held that the SIJ reunification requirement is satisfied when reunification with just one parent is not viable due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect -- the law does not require that reunification with both parents be impossible. The court emphasized that the federal statute uses the word "or" in "one or both" parents, and the court joined the majority of states that read it the same way. Because the district court got both points wrong and never reached the third finding (whether returning A.A. to El Salvador is in her best interest), the Supreme Court sent the case back for the district court to redo the analysis. One justice dissented, arguing that the Nevada statute authorizing district courts to make these SIJ findings, NRS 3.2203, lists the specific kinds of cases it applies to -- and Amaya's custody case (filed under NRS Chapter 125C) is not on that list. In the dissent's view, Amaya should have filed for guardianship under NRS Chapter 159A instead, and could still do so.