Okay, shall we start now? See, ionic equilibrium is like, you know, the last chapter of physical chemistry of grade 11. We have three, four, five more chapters after this. Okay, in this one, in physical chemistry, if you see, that is there in grade 12. This is the last chapter of grade 11 physical chemistry. Yeah, it is a different chapter in NCRT. It is given in the under one chapter only. That is equilibrium. They have given chemical and ionic both together. But this is a different chapter, chemical equilibrium we are done. Okay, now we are discussing about ionic equilibrium. Like I said, it is the last chapter of physical chemistry of grade 11, right? Important one, for example, point of view and a little on the tougher side, you can say. Because, you know, basic questions you will get, you will do that. But there are a scope that you can get very tough questions from this chapter also, okay? If you look at the vastness of this chapter, it is like the two most toughest chapter if you consider in grade 11 physical chemistry, can take off thermodynamics and ionic equilibrium, okay? So relatively tough, you can say, from the other one. Like it's not like ionic equilibrium, which is quite easy and easily you can understand all these things, right? So here we have again conditions, you have to, you know, analyze the condition and then accordingly you can use the formula. That kind of analysis is required over here. If you talk about ionic equilibrium, so here we'll discuss about the equilibrium among the ions in the solution, right? Equilibrium among the ions in the solution, what kinds of equilibrium is there? So, and what is the property of that? How the equilibrium exists, okay? So this chapter, mainly we are going to study about, study about acid base. We're going to study about acid base in this chapter. We are going to study about, you know, pH scale, how to calculate pH that also we'll see. And after this, we have again, neutralization reaction and all hydrolysis, solid hydrolysis buffer solution. There are so many things. Mainly the entire chapter will go around acid base and its pH scale, okay? Acid base and its pH scale. That is what the entire chapter is, okay? So what I said, ionic equilibrium deals with the equilibrium among the ions, right? Equilibrium among ions, correct? So when you dissolve a compound in any solvent, right? It may form ions over there and then the equilibrium of ions we are going to discuss over here. Like for example, if you take NaOH, solid dissolved in water, H2O, it converts into Na plus aqueous and Cl minus aqueous. So what happens, you have a container. In this container, you take water, we take water and we add NaOH over here. NaOH you are considering only one particle, but in this solution here, it is present at two particles, like two ions are there. Na plus OH minus, correct? So it furnishes ions into the solution. It's not like all the compounds will furnish ions into the solution. Like suppose if you have this one, you have water and you add, suppose you add sugar into this. It is here sugar only. It won't furnish ion over here, right? It gets sugar only. So we have basically two types of compounds. You have basically two types of compounds over here, right? One type which provides, I have taken NaOH only here, no? So here also I've taken, see what I have written. One second, I'll just correct it. NaOH is fine, and here we'll have, here we'll have OH minus. Okay. Sugar if you add, sugar won't furnish any ions into the solution. It is here dissolved in the solvent like this, okay? So we have basically two types of compounds. The one which can furnish ions into the solution and the one which does not furnish any ion in the solution. The compounds which furnish ion in the solution or any solvent, we call it as electrolyte. What? Electrolyte. This kind of compounds only are responsible for the electrical conductivity of any solution. Ions can carry charge over here, right? You know in metals we have electrons at the, you know, charge carrier. Here we have ions which carries charge and hence it shows electrical conductivity, right? This kind of solution. This kind of solution is non-electrolyte. It does not show conductivity. This kind of compounds is non-electrolyte. Non-electrolyte are those compounds which does not furnish ion, which does not furnish ion in the solution. Did you get this? Yeah, it's one. Since we talk about the equilibrium of ions, so we must have ions present in the solution. So here in this chapter, we mainly deals with electrolytes. Our focus will be on electrolyte only because it is the one which can produce ions in the solution. So we'll be considering mostly electrolytes over here. Clear? So right down the next heading here, we'll talk about little bit of electrolytes and they'll be move on. Heading all of you right down electrolytes. These are the compounds, compounds which can produce ions in aqueous medium, in aqueous medium are called aqueous medium simply. Compounds which can produce ions in aqueous medium, they have capability of, capability of or capability to produce electricity. Example of electrolytes, we can have many example, any acid we can take, any base we can take, or any salt also we can take. All these comes under the category of electrolyte. Clear? Now you'll see electrolytes are classified into two categories. We have basically two types of electrolyte. The first one is strong electrolyte, cover this down, right down there are substance, there are substance which completely dissociates in water, completely dissociates in water or any polar medium, or in any polar medium, complete dissociation is there. If you talk about degree of dissociation for this kind of substance, degree of dissociation alpha equals to one because we have complete dissociation. So the degree of dissociation for a strong electrolyte is always one. Okay, got it? Done, all of you copied guys? Okay, next we have the second one, which is a weak electrolyte. We'll be dealing with weak electrolyte mostly in this chapter. Write down the other substance which does not dissociate completely, substance which does not dissociate completely and goes under partial dissociation, goes under partial dissociation. Example of strong, I did not give you, I'll write down it. Example of weak electrolyte, you write down. You can have weak acid. Any example of weak acid could you give me? We can take weak acid, we can take weak base, some salt also we can take over here. Some salt, that is AGCL. These are the weak electrolyte. CS3COH you can say Shradha, not NA. NA is a salt, CS3CON is a salt. CS3COH, yeah. Organic acids are generally weak acids, okay? Inorganic are strong except H2CO3. H2CO3 is a weak inorganic acids. If you take the example of strong electrolyte here, it will be a strong acid. I'll write down in short here. A strong acid, we can have strong base or we can have some salt often. Generally the salt of strong acid and strong base are called strong electrolytes. So for weak electrolyte, the degree of dissociation, alpha, alpha is less than one. Start it, equal to one or greater than one. Alpha is less than one over here. Okay, now you see this. Suppose we have a weak electrolyte HA and it dissociates like H plus plus A minus. So the initial concentration of this acid, HA is C, this is zero, this is zero, initially. At time T is equals to T, it's obviously some part of this, HA will convert into X plus and A minus. So it is C minus, C alpha, C alpha and C alpha. Where alpha is the degree of dissociation, C is the concentration we have. Did you understand this? Yeah, tell you guys. Any doubt, no? So what is KC here? KC equals to concentration of H plus, concentration of A minus, concentration of HA, okay? H plus and A minus is C alpha square, C minus C alpha, which is C alpha square divided by one minus alpha. Alpha is the degree of dissociation. So, copy this down first. See, HA is a weak electrolyte, so its degree of dissociation is very small, very less. Very small amount of HA will convert into H plus and A minus. So if we take one minus alpha, if alpha is very small, very small, then one minus alpha is almost equals to one, right? And then this becomes, we are neglecting this alpha with respect to one actually, approximation. And then this becomes K is equals to, K is equals to C alpha square and alpha is equals to K by C root over of it, right? So now you see here, what we can say, concentration and degree of dissociation is inversely proportional, right? So we can conclude from this on dilution, on dilution of weak electrolyte, on dilution of weak electrolyte, the degree of dissociation, the degree of dissociation increases on dilution of weak electrolyte, the degree of dissociation increases. What do you mean by dilution? So in this, if I write down in this relation here, as concentration decreases, alpha increases, right? And it was also it's true, as concentration increases, concentration increases, then alpha decreases because both are inversely proportional. This relation of concentration and alpha, this relation we call it as, we call it as host-wards dilution law, host-wards dilution law valid only for weak electrolyte, valid only for weak electrolytes, because for strong electrolytes, for strong electrolytes, alpha value is already one, right? So there's no point of calculating all this. So it is host-wards dilution law, it says on dilution, the degree of dissociation that is alpha increases, copy this down, okay. So you see, alpha is keep on increasing, right? As C decreases, because dilution means what you're diluting the acid. You keep on adding water, that means strong electrolyte, Kc is equals to infinity, how? We'll take alpha is one, how is Kc is infinity for strong electrolyte? So here what happens, you see, as you keep on diluting the acid, dilution means addition of water, as you keep on diluting the acid, right? It's alpha is increasing, means it's degree of dissociation is increasing. Alpha suppose, alpha suppose it is less than one initially as you keep on diluting, alpha is increasing slowly and slowly, right? And it is going closer to one, right? Tends to one, we have no. And once it tends to one, it starts behaving as a strong acid, as it has a tendency practically, it's not possible, but it has this tendency that as you keep on diluting acid, its degree of dissociation increases and goes to a maxima, right? Where it starts behaving as a strong acid. So right down one last point over here, on very low concentration, on very low concentration, weak acid behaves as a strong acid. On dilution, weak acid starts behaving as a strong acid because alpha is keep on increasing, it tends to one. Done all of you? Keep always this thing in mind that post-wall dilution law is valid only for weak electrolyte, right? And in this chapter, mostly we'll be dealing with weak electrolyte only the alpha value, correct? Okay, now if you talk about acid and base, see for acid and base, we have three different definitions for acid, okay? Three different different form, this thing define our definitions. So we'll see all these definitions over here. Like I said, we have three different definitions of acid. Acid can be defined as, once again, we can have Arrhenius acid, then we have Bronsted acid, and the last one is Lewis acid. What is Arrhenius acid? See, Arrhenius acid are those substance which releases H plus ion in water. Just a second, okay. So Arrhenius acid you see, these are the substance which increases H plus concentration in water. H plus means what protons? Bronsted is the acid which increases the concentration of H plus ion, of H plus ion. Here we don't have the constraint of solvent. Here the solvent is water. Here we can have any solvent. Lewis acid is the electron pair acceptor, electron pair acceptor, or Lewis acid. The one which takes electron pair are called Lewis acid electron pair acceptor, right? Arrhenius and Bronsted have the similar kind of definitions. In Arrhenius what we say, it is the proton donor in water, the solvent must be watered. Bronsted we can have any solvent. We don't have any constraint for solvent to it. Copy this, okay. One more thing here you must understand that in this Bronsted acid definition, we'll talk about this proton. That is we have proton donor it is. Here we have H plus donor in water. So the definition is what? The substance in donate H plus only in water is Arrhenius acid. The one which donates proton in any solvent is called Bronsted acid, okay? We don't have the constraint of solvent in case of Bronsted acid. Now if you see here, we also know acids are those substance which turns blue lit must to red, okay? That also you write down. These are substance which turns blue lit must to red, okay? Now, suppose we have a compound. If a compound contains hydrogen, it does not mean that all the hydrogen are acidic hydrogen, write down. If a compound contains hydrogen, hydrogen, then all hydrogen may or may not be, may or may not be acidic. Like for example, you see, suppose we have CS3 COOH. So we have four hydrogen present over here, but this one, the one which is attached to the electronegative element is the acidic hydrogen, yeah? All hydrogens are not acidic. It is the one which is attached to the electronegative atom. If you talk about H3PO4, H3PO4 the structure is this. OH, OH and OH. So all three hydrogens are acidic hydrogen here. Important, clear, done. One more understanding you must have. If you look at the definition of Brownstead and Arrhenius acid, okay? Arrhenius acid, the solvent must be watered. Brownstead acid, there's no condition of solvent we have. So we can say Arrhenius acid, all Arrhenius acids are Brownstead acids, but all Brownstead are not Arrhenius acid. Can we say that? Because Arrhenius acid, the solvent is watered. Brownstead concept does not have any constraint with solvent, right? It says whatever the solvent it is, if it is donating hydrogen atom, then it is a solvent, right? This also you must take care of the difference between the Brownstead and Arrhenius acid. Similarly, we have three definitions of base also. Arrhenius base and then we have a Brownstead base and then we have a Lewis base. Arrhenius acid is H plus donor. Yes, it's the same thing. Laurie Brownstead acid, Laurie Brownstead base. Same thing it is. Laurie Brownstead acid is same as Brownstead acid. What is the definition of Arrhenius base? Arrhenius base are the compounds which can donate OH minus ion to water, donates hydroxy ion in water. Brownstead base is the one which accepts H plus, Brownstead base are the compounds which accepts H plus, okay? Lewis base are electron pair donor, electron pair donor. This is three definitions we have of Arrhenius base, Brownstead base and Lewis base. Clear, no doubt, tell me. Do you know what is pH? What is a pH scale? So pH scale is we use to measure, to measure the acidic behavior of a compound, right? And it is defined mathematically as minus log of H plus concentration. Since if you substitute here, minus log of H plus, if you find out this minus log of H plus, you'll get the pH of the solution. What is the pH of a neutral solution? Seven, why it is seven? Can we have any other value for neutral solution? Possible? As a first of all, you tell me, why it is seven? Any clue, any idea? Midpoint of what? Yeah, that's what my question is. Why it is one to 14 scale? Why it is 14? Why not 16? Why not 13? Why not any other value? Okay, that is what we are going to understand over here. Second thing, we know the acidic solution, pH is less than seven, correct? So why pH is less than seven? And for base, why it is more than seven? That is also we are going to understand, okay? Under any condition, is it possible to have a neutral solution of pH six or 6.5 or 55.5? That is also we are going to understand, okay? So let's see this. See, if you talk about the dissociation of water, dissociation of water. So we have H2O, H plus and OH minus. Like this, it dissociates, okay. Okay, we'll do this and then we'll take a break. Give me five minutes, okay? Yeah, give me five minutes. H2O dissociates like this. Now, if I write down the equilibrium constant here, K, this is equals to H plus into OH minus divided by concentration of H2O. Concentration of H2O does not change much, okay? Why? Because this H2O is a polar covalent compound. Covalent compound, the dissociation is very less, is small or very less, right? Dissociation is small. Hence we assume the concentration of H2O is almost constant. It's not changing much, so it is a constant. So what we'll write next, you see, we'll write the equilibrium constant K into concentration of H2O is equals to H plus and OH minus concentration. This product, we call it as KW is equals to H plus and OH minus concentration, correct? This KW is called, KW is called the ionic product of water. This we call it as KW, write down all of you. It is dissociation constant, dissociation constant, ionizational constant, ionizational constant. And we also call it as ionic product of water, of water. Now, this value of KW, we have determined experimentally, okay? And it is temperature dependent because KW, you see, it is a function of equilibrium constant. So it is also temperature dependent. It depends upon the temperature. So at 25 degrees Celsius, the value of KW is find out to be 10 to the power minus 14, this you have to memorize. If you find out it at 80 degrees Celsius, KW equals to 10 to the power minus 14. This is the value of KW we have at different, different temperatures. You have to memorize this one. This one is important. One more thing you see, the dissociation of water here is an endothermic process. Let me write down here. Dissociation of water is endothermic process. An endothermic process, tell me, if temperature increases forward or backward, forward or backward, temperature increases forward or backward. Endothermic temperature increases. I think it is forward, is it? Yeah, forward, Gayatri? Is it forward? Yes, it is forward. So you see as the temperature increases, this goes in forward direction. So concentration of H plus and OH minus also increases. And when the concentration of H plus and OH minus increases, the value of KW should also increase. If this and this will increase, then value of KW should also increase. That's why you see at 25 degrees Celsius, the value of KW is lesser than the value at 80 degrees Celsius. Yeah, understood. So write down those two lines. KW is temperature dependent. Temperature increases. KW increases as temperature decreases. KW decreases. We haven't done this. Okay, we'll continue with this after the break. One second, guys. Let's don't go away. One small thing I wanted to ask for those like for the bio students, are you comfortable for this week if we have a session?


Good morning and welcome back to House Futurary Committee and we are working on S163 state court petitions for vulnerable non-citizen youth. We're looking at the version as passed by the Senate. And we are starting our witness testimony. I'd like to welcome Judge Dane. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for the record, Tom Zone, Chief Superior Judge. And I would want to thank the chair and Amber Burke. I did have another obligation later and she's been just wonderful and the chairs with appreciated to for letting me be able to testify and make all my commitments today. I can be pretty brief, I think the short of it is that in 2019 the legislature passed an act that addressed these important issues for non-citizen youth. The bill that was introduced into the Senate S163 was designed to clarify jurisdiction and procedures for the state courts to make special findings for at risk non-citizen children who were petitioning for the special immigrant status. It was also extending jurisdiction to state courts to make those findings youth who had not yet reached the age of 21. When the testimony was taken before the Senate Judiciary Committee, there were a number of concerns that had been identified, I will say I identified concerns that judiciary had other stakeholders identified concerns. Those concerns were addressed. We had discussions with the stakeholders. They were addressed by the committee. And I can say that the bill that is before this committee today as passed does meet with the approval of the court in terms of we support this bill. It does do what it's set out to do, and that is provide the clarification and the extension as saw originally. And so we support this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? That's it. Great. Thank you. Have a safe journey everyone. Take care. Great. You too. Take care. Good morning and welcome, Jill Rudge. It's the first time I've met you and welcome to the House Judiciary. And thank you so much for being with us and testifying on this bill. Good morning and thank you so much for having me. For the record, my name is Jill Rudge and I am an assistant professor and the lead immigration clinic attorney at Vermont Law School. I am overcoming a cold so I apologize about the hoarseness of my voice. I am really privileged to be here and to voice the clinic support for this bill. I was unfortunately unable to attend the read through this morning. So, and I appreciate how valuable everyone's time is. So I might just ask the chair if it would be helpful for me from my immigration legal perspective to provide some context and background as to why I support the bill or whether it would be more helpful for me to focus on some of the actual cases I'm litigating on that fall under this statute. Actually, both would be would be wonderful. Absolutely. Great. Wonderful. Yeah. So, you know, thank you again for this opportunity to offer testimony on the bill. It stands to ensure full access to justice for all federally eligible non citizen youth in offering testimony today. I draw from my experiences representing special immigrant juvenile status eligible youth in Vermont, as well as several years representing Siege eligible youth in New York in both their state court and federal immigration matters. Congress created special immigrant juvenile status to offer at risk non citizen youth under 21, who are dependent upon a state juvenile court, a pathway to safety and stability in the United States. When the reunification with one or both parents is not viable for reasons relating to abuse, abandonment or neglect. When a state juvenile court has taken jurisdiction over questions relating to a non citizen use health, safety or welfare, Congress has empowered the Department of Homeland Security to extend to that use a pathway to permanent residency. If the state court makes findings that the youth meets the elements of an S I J under the immigration and nationality act one oh one a 27 J. When the Vermont legislature passed the original version of this law, it clarified the jurisdiction and procedures for Vermont state courts to make these special findings for any dependent non citizen youth, which in Vermont until now has only included 18 youth under 18. This has meant that non citizen youth over 18 but who have not yet attained 21 have not had access to fully enjoy their federal immigration rights to permanency, which is really a right to safety and stability and protection under the law. In fact, vulnerable non citizen youth ages 18 to 21 are missing out on opportunities to receive work authorization and health care to apply for financial aid to attend college to get licensed to practice their professional technique or trade to accrue time toward citizenship so that they can publicly participate and vote, all of which are necessary to restabilize and at risk non citizen use health, safety and welfare. The immigration clinic fully supports bill s 163 before this committee today, because of the three key ways we see it advancing equal access to justice. First, it extends probate and family division jurisdiction for the limited purpose of making special findings for dependent at risk non citizen youth to allow eligible youth under 21 the opportunity to pitch in the federal government for special immigrant juvenile youth as provided by the INA. The bill also clarifies one with what scope and level of detail of Vermont state court may make these special findings to help ensure that the federal government deems those findings sufficiently detailed as to clearly establish the at risk use eligibility for fid and accepts the state court order on its face. It also clarifies the procedures and purpose of 14 dsa 3098 by bringing the language closer into line with the language included in INA one on one a 27 J. For example cases. I represent presently a handful of at risk non citizen youth from across Vermont regions who are seeking special findings under the statute. And in my experience, the changes introduced by this bill will serve to improve access to justice for this small, but vulnerable group of individuals immensely and with no cost to the government. I can offer several examples. I'm going to change some of the details either going to be annoyingly vague to protect their identity and confidentiality. Example one involves a young client who fled an abusive parent, her dad in her country of origin.  Dad's family and country of origin is wealthy abuse the legal system there to obtain custody of the child over mom's objection and over maternal grandparents objection, enabling dad to subject her to various forms of abuse and neglect. Child fled as soon as possible and reunited with mom here, who sought an order of custody and care under Vermont's parentage statute in the family division, so that mom can have documentation that ensure her right to make decisions about child physical and mental child abuse for schooling for development. The current 14 dsa 3098 codifies and state law the family divisions jurisdiction to make special findings for this at risk non citizen youth, who faces imminent risk of removal to her country of origin. And those amendments in this bill would help ensure that the language format and level of detail of those special findings will clear the ever increasing thresholds set by federal policy, and show that this child is in fact at risk, and that child's mother did enter state juvenile court for the purposes of ensuring her health safety and well being. Thank you. And to the point of over 18 figs. I represent a teenage youth who lost both of her parents to issues relating to violence in her early childhood maternal grandparents provided for her as long as they could, but they are now to six provide for her safety and well being. In the last 11 she cannot consistently make the unsafe route to school, then her health began to deteriorate rapidly turned out she has a chronic illness that is left untreated leads to certain death. She fled here as soon as possible to reunite with a relative who has petitioned for guardianship of her in the probate division. This will ensure that the relative as with the previous example. She has the ability to help guide the child's physical and mental health care, her schooling and her development as she enters her teenage years. They also seek special findings for the child competition for S I J and terminate her removal proceedings and immigration court. The child's slowdown in the court system have caused my client's petition to languish in the system were the pandemic to continue, or if child was just a couple of years older and nearing the age of 18. She may well reach 18 or have reached 18 before receiving her special findings and for S I J. She has the ability to provide for her health care to prevent her from petitioning for S I J from the federal government, losing her opportunity to seek legal status work authorization access to health insurance and financial aid, and ultimately protection from removal to a country where no one can care for her or protect her or provide for her health care to prevent her grave illness or even death. She has the ability to access pathways to health and safety and well being these pathways that Congress afforded when it created special immigrant juvenile status at I N A 101 a 27 J. To conclude, I will share that while the special immigrant juvenile cases I work on admittedly represents a discrete proportion of my docket. I have a really numerous population, although you know I'm not doing affirmative outreach in the community so I can't speak with certainty to need. It's a really important group of non citizen Vermonters folks who are in the most vulnerable position that a non citizen Vermonter might base an at risk youth, who is at risk of removal. And I think with these changes, we're going to improve access to justice for really important and vulnerable population, and I have bear witness to the incredibly stabilizing effects for an entire household that a pathway to permanency like this for an at risk youth can have. Thank you very much again for the opportunity to testify. Thank you so much for your testimony. I'm wondering if you can flesh out for the committee a little bit more like what happens what kinds of conditions what these youth based when they are when they when they like removal proceedings are successful and they're just to clarify the question is the question regarding what kinds of factual situations give rise to a sage eligible youth coming to Vermont or how we know how the proceedings play out. I don't know how they're removable proceedings play out when they are successful and like successful, you know, in that that's probably wrong language here but one of you is removed through those proceedings what kinds of conditions are they in the country that they'll return to. Absolutely so almost exclusively the young people that I represent here in Vermont are folks who either present themselves at a port of entry when they're crossing the border, the Mexican US border, or are detected crossing the border without inspection. They are put into removal proceedings, and then they're taken into the office of refugee resettlement custody until a sponsor can be identified for them to be released from custody, where they can be living with that sponsor and defending themselves in removal proceedings and immigration court. For a lot, you know a lot of these use the use we're talking about those who are eligible for s i j. You know it's a bifurcated process where at first, the youth must seek, you know their special findings in the court upon which they've become dependent by virtue of being at risk. In addition, UST is for special immigrant juvenile status that whole time the immigration court process continues to run. And in Vermont, our cases are venue in the Boston immigration court, which for a clinic of my very small size it's a very labor intensive process, going down to Boston to extend representation to these youth. So we're there, explaining to the immigration judge that this person may be removable as charged at the moment that is petitioning for f i j, and asking the court to leave to let Vermont state courts and USC is completed processes. So I think that there's a sense that there's a breakdown in the process that the youth is not able to obtain the necessary state court findings, or USC is not satisfied with the language that is included in the order from the state court and s i j is not obtained, or to the age out of eligibility, and they have no other claims for relief from removal, then the immigration court can order them removed as charged. And then these young people, at least my clients I can speak about my docket. If they were to be removed to their countries of origin, not one of them would have an adult in their life who can care for them, provide for their safety ensure that they're going to school, provide for their health care, and protect them from the people who are trying to harm them as in the case of my, you know, my first client I shared with you who has an abuser in her life. And my clients tend to not be detained anymore by the time they reach Vermont right they've been released from detention and they're now appearing in immigration court on the non detained docket. But if they are ordered to move then I can take them into custody and effectuate their removal. Thank you. And thanks for your work. Thank you for this opportunity. So, I have a question related to expeditious adjudication. It sounds great but it's too vague in my mind and I worry that if we don't say within, so it's like bottom of page four top of page five, if we don't specify. But in 60 days or within six months that these cases can language and I'm thinking a lot of just adoption cases even or other cases where, even though they're supposed to happen quickly. They don't happen quickly and that's not so great. So do you have thoughts about that. You know, and I would definitely defer to the other witnesses as well. And I don't want to speak for anyone else or for the Senate Judiciary Committee but it's my understanding that the Senate committee was concerned about the being too prescriptive about timelines in the event of something like COVID-19 that makes it literally impossible to meet certain deadlines and like these catastrophic unforeseen situations and I recall that there was a question about whether the if the state was not able to meet these timelines whether there would be a right of action. I'm an immigration rights advocate. So of course I have, you know, my position that I always seek the statutory language that would put my clients in the best position to have access to the justice. And so certainly I share your concern about the risk that a case could languish on the docket. As I mentioned I have one languishing now and if my client were just a little bit older under the current language she would be aging out of eligibility. And is it ever the case that if somebody's languishing their language, their languishing, I mean I, it's been troubling that there have been people sitting in jail during COVID awaiting their trial for a really long time. Would that situation of a like secure residential program be where some of these people are awaited? Like, could that be happening to this population? So for non-citizen youth, I mean it could, it could happen that there could be a young person who is in ICE detention while, you know, they're in custody while they're awaiting their, the adjudication of their special findings petition for USCIS. What I see more commonly is, you know, you're going to the immigration court and you're saying, Judge, you know, we respectfully request a long adjournment on this question of my client's removability because while she is currently removable of charge, she, she soon won't be because she's a prima facie claim for special immigrant juvenile status. And I could see, depending on who is setting policy and procedure for the immigration court, which is not a special article one court, it's a, you know, it's an administrative law court firmly situated within the executive in the political branch. I could see the court as we have seen in recent years be more aggressive about pushing cases along and not wanting to grant vulnerable respondents like a non-citizen siege youth, the time that they need to allow the state court process to happen and the DHS process to happen. And I could see vulnerable at-risk youth are prima facie siege eligible being ordered removed. Is there any protection that you might add to the bill to open up situation at all? You know, and I'd be curious to hear from others again, but it is my perspective that by this bill kind of expands the bucket of individuals who are able to begin the two step process in Vermont State Court to the fullest extent, to be authorized by Congress in the INA. And so it seems to me that this is a very robust approach in line with a lot of our neighboring states who have passed very similar legislation including Maine and New York and Massachusetts. And so I feel very supportive of the approach that this bill has taken. Thank you. And then we have a new Hampshire. Are they included in that list? That is a great question representative. I have a list in front of me. So, allow me to check. No. I did not see New Hampshire. I'm looking to say. Thank you. Well, if there are no further questions, thank you very much for your time. And again, you know, to the extent that it would be helpful for the committee to hear from the clinic again, I would be very grateful to rejoin you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate your testimony in your work. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning to the committee for the record Aaron Jacobson from the attorney general's office and I'm here to testify in strong support of this bill. You've already heard from this is who kind of explained the purpose of the bill and professor red should a fantastic job of illustrating with case examples. Why, why we need this bill and to your question representative rages and why do we need this bill. So I thought I could just step back a little bit to like how how this bill came about. And in so doing also use a case example that illustrates kind of the backstory of how we got here so back in 2018 and 2019 I was working at the immigration clinic where professor red now works and we were representing a family of four children from Angola. And they, along with their mom who had representation out of Boston, they were all in removal proceeding so the our government was trying to deport all of them because they'd overstayed their visa. Mom had a really strong withholding case which is like asylum, but the kids didn't have the same case and so we were able to do was through a proceeding a parentage proceeding in Addison County. We were able to, first of all make sure that mom who was a single mom living with the kids in Vermont in a very vulnerable state was able to get a parentage determination that she was the sole custodial parent of these four kids because in fact, dad had disappeared nobody knew where dad was. There was there were some indications that maybe he had that he was dead, that something bad had happened to him, but also if there were some indications that he had just kind of abandoned the family. Nobody really knew. So mom got this parentage determination that that that made it clear that she was the sole custodial parent. Through that process, we also asked the court if it could make the special findings for the kids so that we could then take those special findings from the state court and apply for special immigrant juvenile status. Well, the judge said no, I don't have jurisdiction to issue these particular findings. I can do the parentage, but I can't say anything as to, for example, whether or not it's in the child's the children's best interest to be returned to ambola. We got into a fairly long complicated legal battle that ended up going on for several months, maybe maybe more than a year actually ended up in the Vermont Supreme Court, where we did. When I threw a unanimous decision that yes, our state courts do have jurisdiction to make these requested special findings, because our courts are the purpose of these of these proceedings is to make best interest determinations for kids. And it is our state courts that that have the expertise when it comes to care and custody of children. So there is a favorable decision out of Vermont Supreme Court. And that was in June of 2019. However, nothing in statute, nothing codified. And so then in 2019 began the effort to codify this, the jurisdictional ability of courts to issue these special findings. There was a bill. And then in that bill there was also the over 18 provisions, which at the very last second, I think it was like the day before the state house was to close down for COVID. The over 18 provisions got scrapped from the bill. And that was in so that was in March of 2020. And then forward then this bill is is is a next step from from that bill in 2020 to really clarify what the purpose of these findings are that all of the all of our state courts have jurisdiction to issue these special findings, and that also that's the case for kids who are having special findings, which then aligns with the federal law, allowing for kids between the ages of 18 and 21 to get special immigrant juvenile status. I should also add that in that that case that ended up in the Supreme Court, the oldest child was 17 and three quarters when we were fighting with the court about needing these special findings, and we needed them quickly. The first thing to do was ask for an expedited processing with the Supreme Court. And we had to quickly turn around our brief and then have expedited arguments, and then we had to ask the court to order the order the lower court to quickly issue the findings before the child turned 18 because otherwise he was going to age out. And that happened approximately 10 days before his birthday. So we don't, that's the kind of situation where the litigation went on and on and on. It was really complicated. It was really fraught. The oldest child is about to age out there in removal proceedings. And then we had to ask for this expedited processing at the highest court. So in part, this bill is just to avoid all of that and also just make it clear that of course our courts have the authority to issue the findings requested. Really helpful. Okay. So I'm just curious, going back to the dad that just disappeared. Was he in the US when he disappeared? He was at one point. And then he left the family in, and he never came back. No one ever knew where he went or what happened to him. And I guess I would just say too that that situation also illustrates why in the bill there's language about abuse, abandonment, neglect or similar circumstances. So under federal immigration law, a death of a parent could be similar circumstances. The situation where one of the parents just kind of disappears, even if it wasn't of their own volition, maybe something bad happened to him, that would satisfy abuse, abandonment, neglect or similar circumstances. So I have one more question and I probably missed this and it's already been asked and answered by, but this seems like to me like we're dealing with something that the federal government should be dealing with. How did it get to this point? And why and just make it as quick as you can because I don't want to bore everybody. Well, you're not boring me. I think it's a really insightful question and here's the reason why because Congress decided that when they designed special immigrant juvenile status, when they created that humanitarian relief. When did that happen? That was in the 90s, I want to say. I think it was 1992. I could get back to you on exactly when that law was passed. I don't know what administration that was. I'm fairly certain it was the Clinton administration, but I will get back to you. But Congress felt that because the relief was for children who are abused, abandoned or neglected. It was initially created for kids who are like, maybe in foster care who had foster parents who were perhaps US citizens, but the kids had no status. There was a real inability to make sure that the kids had safe safety and security in the United States. That was kind of the initial purpose of the bill was to create status for those vulnerable abused kids. However, Congress felt that at the time the immigration and nationality service, which is now Department of Homeland Security, but the federal immigration agency did not have the expertise to make determinations about care and custody of kids. That's just not their area of expertise. So they created this two-part scheme where they said it starts in the state courts, you get the findings, and then you can apply for the federal status. Does a birth certificate come in any type of this area at all? Does that mean anything with dealing with this type of stuff? I'm not certain I understand the question of birth certificate. So the identity of where the kids come from and all that stuff, is there any starting point of their life that the government would look at to try to identify with the individuals? Well, certainly when you apply for any kind of immigration status with the immigration agency, you have to prove your identity. And if you're applying for special immigrant juvenile status, you would want to prove that you're not a U.S. citizen, that you were not born in the United States. Otherwise, if you were born in the United States, you wouldn't need the status as well. You would want to show where you're from because you need that special finding about how it's not in your best interest to be returned to your country of origin or your last habitual residence. So it's important that you're able to prove who you are and where you're from in that context for sure. I do see that Professor Ritch has their hand up. Yeah. Thank you very much, Chair. Attorney Jacobson, if I may offer, because I have the benefit of testifying virtually, I have access to my own my thing, Pierre, and the representatives earlier question about when FIJ was added to the INA. So Congress added FIJ to the Immigration Nationality Act in 1990 under their President George H. Bush administration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see any hands. Thank you. Rebecca. Good morning. Good morning, committee. Good to be back. For the record, Rebecca Turner at the Defender General's Office. I have appeared before you many times and you're certainly aware of my work in the Defender General's Office. What you may not be aware of before I came here to the Defender General's Office more than 15 years ago, I was an immigration attorney. And one of the many hats I still wear within the Defender General's Office is to be part of a team of other attorneys where we provide consults to other attorneys in our system. And as you know, the private attorneys who are contracted in to represent clients who are assigned attorneys or public defenders, both in the family chins proceeding context, delinquency context and criminal, criminal court context. And so as Judge Zone and Aaron have already spoken to. We were closely all of us together when this bill was before Senate Judiciary to come together and on the precise language you've gotten a sort of a taste of the highly technical nature of this status what it takes to qualify for the complicated nature. It's really also unique in immigration status is an immigration law this requirement that Congress set up that Aaron was just talking about this two part process. Looking to the state courts to make special findings because it is in the state courts wheelhouse to consider the child's best interest and welfare right to make those findings to then bring it back to federal immigration requirements and federal immigration. Judicators to consider ultimate qualifications. And as Aaron said, there's not just you know proof of identity, but there are background checks to make sure the criminal background checks. And it's just the requirements to meet the status. We're just seeing the small part here, which is state courts, making findings as is deemed appropriate based on what is before them. And so I think that that was consistent was qualifying for this status. I think that maybe I'll I'll just land on some of the questions I've heard based and go from there and also if you have new questions please, please let me know I think one of the questions that is relating to the purposes. There was a reference to maybe we can be better, better clarify the purpose section. I think that was page four has a page four page and page five section. There's a reference to the purpose as construed by the legislative purposes of certainly I would not have any objection to bringing in the language that I saw put in as the purposes of this bill right here. I think that would make it more clear. There was another question as to the purposes section. This is on page seven bottom of page seven section D structurally. This is sort of a setup to repeat and confirm that the family that the courts and landing on this entitled 14 have jurisdiction and also entitled 43. The bottom of page seven going to purposes is in title 3333. And so relative to the purposes section there. It is cross whispering call cross referencing back to 5101 and in that section of title 33 the legislature has set out specific purposes under the Chin's scheme the child. Children in need of currency provision proceedings are the need for permanency reunification to ensuring the safety of the child and so on. It's a long established list of factors that the court has to consider whenever it is considering anything in these Chin's proceedings and so we wanted to make sure that this section was consistent with that. So there was discussion about it furthering the understanding of child interest child's best interests and in the siege context. There is oftentimes reference to the child's best interest but in the Chin's context that term has a special definition of the child's best interest in the statute defining what the child's best interest in considerable case law developing what those statutes mean. So we wanted to make sure we didn't use the child's best interest raising in this section to cause confusion. And so all of that by way of saying we thought it best to in that section sub part D on page 7 to go back to the 5101 section. I think those are the questions that I heard and I'll pause here for any new additional questions. Okay. Talks about specifying a time period. Right. No, I think that I share your concerns. As Jill relayed she that was my understanding of how the issue was raised in Senate judiciary that that if there was a more prescriptive specific requirement set up by the legislature to the judiciary you must consider this with an X amount of time that it would get in the way of possibly other things like the court knows it's not the best and can and can prioritize within. And as we know, circumstances changed and have changed in terms of identifying how quickly how many cases can go before the court but I do share the concern. I think that the language in there, which is not just as administratively feasible that's on page 5 proper page 5. It says that this is in at least title 12 section title 14 section expeditious adjudication, the court shall issue findings, as soon as it is administratively feasible. I think that it's, it's strengthened by the and that immediately follows and prior to the non citizen child turning 21, because to me that is the safety net there that we're taught we were concerned with and what Aaron talked about with her specific case, where she was just stays away from her client the child turning 18 and aging out. I know adoption cases are similar in terms of the 18th birthday and there's pressure from the feds in terms of like money if we're not in compliance with permanency planning. And yet it seemed it seems like some of those cases I've taken a super long so I still like it. I worry about like what's convenient for the court and if there's another pandemic, certain businesses needs to happen during this pandemic and it seems like you should let people off the hook that way. So I just wonder about like people I mean the court like we need to figure this out like we have people who could get to courted we have people who are sitting and like we need to do something so I guess I just wonder about leaving it to the court just I get that the courts are busy and have competing interests but but we definitely we the legislature I think talk a lot about hearing about it so like this should this be red flag does like this first. No I would certainly support the additional language in that section of making sure it's clear that the legislature intends these cases to be treated as top priority. Pandemic or not pandemic or not that that that the and whether it fits into the purpose section that we talked about bringing that language of the bill right into the statute itself it could be there. I would put it in as as given priority. I can put that back. I was trying to pull up the older versions I know that this language changed during the course of discussions in the Senate judiciary and I just don't have the original language in front of me but there might be something that would support that would support that. How many cases are we dealing with it for a year. Yes, good question we've been asked that I and I think that the Jill and Aaron can can speak to what they have seen in terms of what and I was talking to Jen Micah at DCF about the cases that we've seen and there have we couldn't recall the cases in the state court family courts chins context which is where I would see them. Right. This is like a more expansive would allow it to go into the probate guardianship probate court Marina which I think is where they would most more often come and as I understand that's where those cases have come. But no we have not seen one case where we've requested what I've heard about right where we were a client or a juvenile is asked a judge and family court chins proceedings for these findings. However, this is having this as an option as part of the toolbox for representing a juvenile representing a child has been abandoned right and we're trying to as as a as an attorney representing their interest. Think of all the various ways we can achieve that permanency protection one of them may be stabilizing their immigration status these children come and have no status right if they can if they qualify. Get this special immigrant juvenile path status and then is their their pathway to getting a green card right when the defender has that case and is looking. We look at all sorts of things. Lots of times these children will qualify for other immigration statuses. This is a particularly difficult status to get not that any of the others are easy. But it may make sense in any given case to pursue a different one a crime against and via status under the violence against what violence against women act provides a way for a child to get immigration status. There are also other statuses for crime victims right working with a prosecutor so there may be other ways to achieve legal immigration status besides this so when we when I say that there are that I'm not aware of any known cases in the family chins court docket where a judge has been asked to make these findings. That's not to say the need for this doesn't exist. Right. I mean Vermont by its nature demographically speaking. We have very few relatively speaking numbers of noncitizens. But we do have in our chin system children who are not citizens. We do have children in our system we're representing children who don't have legalized immigration status who are vulnerable. Not just to have an instability in their homes which is why DCF had to intervene and bring that child into state custody. We have children who are also vulnerable for immigration to detect their undocumented status and remove them from this country even though there are these ongoing state court proceedings to protect them. Right. Congress again of all the various ways that they've they've determined the ability for someone to gain lawful immigration status. They landed on this one. So here we are. And it really is a narrow technical correction. And so what we are here to do is to make sure that the intent which is to make clear that the state courts have jurisdiction over this this narrow matter. Both in terms of the subject you can issue these findings. You can issue these findings for children or youth over 18 and less than 21. That was the other critical fix. Because right now state courts are limited in jurisdiction to a child who is not yet 18. Right. And federal immigration law child is defined not as 18 but under 21. And so that's that fixed to that this bill is is trying to correct and make clear. Thank you. I'm still thinking about this question and about possibly putting in a purpose or intent. But often those get taken out of bills or they end up in session law or something like that. So I was wondering if you could remind me of the rules of set straight construction in terms of being liberally construed or should be construed in favor of the somebody finished my sentence. Do you know what I mean. Like is is there a principle already. The purpose is determined by the plain language of the statutes. Right. And so that is the start and finish. If it's clear. You don't go anywhere else. If it's ambiguous less clear than we look outside of the record including the purpose section of the bill. Right. So it is stronger to have a directly in the statute itself. It will be less ambiguous as to what was intended. Yeah. I'm just sometimes in terms of the legislative process purposes or findings and you know intent don't always don't always make it to the finish line. So I just just wanted to primer on the law and you know the law and whether the law would be in our favor for some reason we weren't able to get that person there. Martin. Yeah. Just on that. But we usually don't have a provision where we talk about construction and. So so the fact that we have that there suggests we should have a statement and maybe that that makes the purpose statement more likely to survive through the whole process. But that wasn't my question. I had is very narrow actually. It's in the first page and it's the definition of court and do we need to have the including the probate division and the family division of the superior court. Is there a reason why you think we should keep that because I mean it's otherwise covered in the first part of that definition. Again it was it was it was the intent of that was to make it crystal clear to those two courts which is where we anticipate Belton suspenders. That's right. Again for sake of clarity and purposes we are here even though a version of this past. So we're trying to make sure we don't have to go back and dot another. I. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Hey, our last witness Rita. From my great justice. Morning. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Can you hear me well. Yes. Yes. Excellent. So, yeah, I think I'm here, you know, not as an attorney, but someone that is really close to the community that we're talking about. And just to, you know, put a little bit of reality of the situations and cases that that we see happen. Kind of the context of how, you know, parents decide to come here in a way that's kind of forced migration because opportunities back in their countries are not there. So families are separated in that way that parents have to come here and then years pass and because the situation here hasn't really changed much. And kids back home don't see the opportunities to keep studying or, you know, get opportunities there have to migrate here again. And we see kids coming after their parents were here for many years.  Now, I'm following their tracks, coming to work in the same situation that they are. So we keep the pattern of putting youth in vulnerable places. They might come and have the opportunity to get to the school but the reality is that they cannot because they have to work. They have to start thinking about making their own money while parents have been there for many years, just helping them survive through the younger years. And the protections for the youth is really going to bring them not only to keep the pattern of keep working and, you know, conditions that are not great, but also giving them the opportunity to be young. And with that youth, they can really, you know, pass the life in a way that they really are, if they are here, they are protected to learn a new language, finish a school. Start having jobs in different places, really helping them to go through a way in life that doesn't have to be the same that their parents were forced to when they migrate here. So that's what I want to share. I think it's really important when we see young people in the farms coming in and it gets younger and younger. And, you know, having them being hidden, not really getting opportunities. I personally have my kids here growing up, and I can see how, you know, having them did the privilege and opportunity to not be afraid and be able to go to school and then apply for college and do all those other things really opens their mind and also made them like part of this society in a good way that they're integrated. So we want that for these kids that come here too. We don't want them to be hidden in the farms or hidden in, you know, home because of the fear of their immigration status. And we need to realize that they are still kids learning, and we don't want them to learn that they have to be in the shadows. We want them to really be able to grasp the opportunities that they come from and it's not been exploited by the labor force. We want them to be, you know, like people that it's not the future is the present, and that they are going to be held in this world for us to be better like we're getting older. They have to have good opportunities and be well here. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions. Okay. Do you want to?