Young migrants present state's schools with tangle of needs — and examples of resilience

Elder Leiva glides through the bustle of Wellstone High's cafeteria, a nonchalant lilt to his gait.

He continues on to a quiet school office, where he finds a spread of pork tacos and Minneapolis district staffer Mayra Garcia-Rivera. She's there to give Elder and a half-dozen other teens answers to high-stakes questions: How do they catch up on school credits — and childhood vaccinations? How do they line up a library card — and a lawyer?

Leiva is among the more than 400 Central American youths who have landed in Minnesota schools and immigration court as part of the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the border. Schools have geared up to meet needs that go well beyond academics. Amid intense political scrutiny and legal uncertainty, they have helped teens like Leiva sign up for health insurance, pick up their first English phrases, navigate public transportation and find immigration attorneys.

Critics of the Obama administration's handling of the immigration surge argue meeting youngsters' complex needs is too much to ask of local districts and taxpayers. Even some advocates worry that many local communities are ill-prepared for the challenge of easing teens into life in America.

Some Minnesota school districts with large Latino populations appear to have taken the new arrivals in stride. Leiva is grateful, though his fate is not clear.

"You get a lot of chances to be somebody in this country," says Leiva, a 17-year-old from Honduras. "I got a second chance to be a kid."

Long journey to America

In his hometown of Villanueva, Leiva dropped out of the sixth grade to take a job mixing cement. But it wasn't enough: He could still hear his single mother, who supported the family by selling tortillas, weeping in bed as debts mounted. His two older brothers had a hard time finding jobs. Meanwhile, gang killings and harassment picked up.

So at age 14, Leiva set out for the United States. He knew the journey would take a while. He had to cross Guatemala and Mexico and work along the way to save up for the passage. He never expected it would stretch over two years.

In Mexico, he put in 13-hour days washing dishes in restaurants and stayed in safe houses packed with fellow migrants. In Reynosa, just across the U.S. border, he thought often about turning back. On Facebook, he wrote: "Mexico is hell for me, but it's something I have to go through to be somebody."

In November, he finally had saved the $1,000 he paid for a chance to wade across the Rio Grande and some advice: Turn yourself over to the U.S. Border Patrol as soon as you cross.

The southern border has seen a spurt in the number of Honduran, El Salvadoran and Guatemalan children crossing without their parents. New arrivals jumped from fewer than 4,000 between 2009 and 2011 to 52,000 in 2014, before dipping more recently.

Many are fleeing gang violence and poverty. The savvy criminal organizations that increasingly run migrant smuggling take advantage of the U.S. immigration process to assure families that their children will get to stay, some experts believe. Under a federal human trafficking law, minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada are entitled to a day in court before they can be deported. Until then, the government has to place them in the "least restrictive" setting — usually with a parent or close relative already living in the United States.

On the night Elder Leiva turned himself in near the border, his aunt in Minneapolis, Mary Evelin Leiva, got a 1 a.m. phone call from immigration authorities. She had never met Elder. She has long discouraged her own teenage son in Honduras from undertaking the journey: It's too dangerous.

But Mary Leiva didn't hesitate: A cook at a south Minneapolis eatery, she dipped into her family's emergency stash to pay about $900 for plane tickets for Elder and a chaperone. At the airport, she and Elder recognized each other and embraced. "I could feel he was my blood right away," she says.

Juggling needs

In January, Elder Leiva had his first day of school in three years. He is one of 10 unaccompanied minors registered at Wellstone, which specializes in serving new immigrants. Like Leiva, many are learning English from scratch and trying to fill major academic gaps. Many are juggling school with jobs, says Wellstone's student support program assistant Tony Andrade-Vera, to save for legal fees or repay money borrowed to cross the border.

Fifteen students registered as unaccompanied minors this school year in Minneapolis, though district officials believe more have enrolled.

In Worthington — home to a growing Latino community — Superintendent John Landgaard estimates about 50 unaccompanied minors enrolled this school year in the 3,000-pupil district, which has earned recognition for serving such students. The district is hiring two English language educators, two special education teachers and one or two nurses next fall.

"We're fortunate we're better-equipped to serve these students than other districts, but there are still additional costs we're dealing with," Landgaard said.

Some have criticized the Obama administration for saddling states and local communities with the cost of educating the students and meeting health care and other needs. Jessica Vaughan of the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, who testified on the subject in Congress late last year, points to Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, which hired almost 70 teachers and paraprofessionals after more than 530 minors settled there.

"Local communities have an obligation to provide these services, and a lot of them are struggling," said Vaughan.

The United States cannot welcome every young migrant touched by gang violence and poverty in Central America, she says, and needs a faster process to send them back.

Minneapolis officials say they have tapped existing resources, including people like Garcia-Rivera, to serve the unaccompanied students.

Leiva is doing well. He shares a room with "Star Wars" bedsheets with his 9-year-old cousin, who teaches him English and looks up to him like an older brother. Leiva shows off his midsemester A's in social studies, beginning writing and beginning science concepts. He still has time to turn around a D in Level 1 English.

He sees a doctor, a dentist and a nutritionist for the first time in his life. The physician tells Leiva his blood pressure is too high. He needs to learn to relax. But, though life is much easier in America, it's hard to relax, Leiva says: "There's too much pressure — with school, the new language, court."

Finding a lawyer at school

In March, Garcia-Rivera received a frantic call from Leiva. He had just found out his initial deportation hearing was the next morning, and he had no attorney.

Back in August, states launched expedited dockets to handle the cases of unaccompanied minors. Some advocates argue the pace is too fast.

Garcia-Rivera told Leiva to go. If he didn't show up, the judge could order him deported. The next morning, Judge Susan Castro gave Leiva a month to find a lawyer.

That time sped by. His aunt can't afford a private attorney, and legal nonprofits she called have waiting lists. Just before his court date, Laura Wilson of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid visited Wellstone and met with unaccompanied students at Garcia-Rivera's invitation. Two days before the appearance, she took Leiva's case.

For his second deportation hearing in April, Leiva puts on a striped, button-down shirt instead of the customary white T-shirt over his jeans. In Castro's Fort Snelling courtroom, he dons headphones to hear the Spanish interpreter.

Wilson tells Castro she will apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for Leiva, granted to children unable to return to their home countries because they were neglected or abused by a parent. She might apply for asylum, as well. She asks Castro for four months to get started.

"That's too much," Castro says and grants two months.

Leiva hopes he will get to stay. This summer, he plans to get a job so he can start sending money to his mother. His No. 1 goal is still to learn English.

"I lost so much time working and struggling to get here," says Leiva. "But I never lost faith."

Mila Koumpilova • 612-673-4781