Shouldn’t 3-year-olds get a lawyer at hearings?

The government doesn’t allow cameras into deportation hearings for migrant children, perhaps to protect the privacy of the children, but more likely to shield the rest of us from the horror that goes on there.

And that’s what it is. A horror. Children who are charged with violating immigration laws — such as the thousands we have in custody, owing in part to President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy — have no right to have a lawyer appointed to them.

What that means is that little kids, some only toddlers, must serve as their own lawyers in deportation hearings, facing off against attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security.

It’s true. This apparently is not a new policy, but it has been exacerbated by the current situation, in which we detain thousands of children, many of them having been forcibly removed from their parents.

Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, said of the practice, “We were representing a 3-year-old in court recently who had been separated from the parents. And the child — in the middle of the hearing — started climbing up on the table. It really highlighted the absurdity of what we’re doing with these kids.”

Even more absurd, there are immigration officials who actually try to justify it.

Jack H. Weil, a longtime immigration judge who is responsible for training other judges, actually said in sworn testimony in a lawsuit over the practice, “I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.”

Anyone who has children … hell, anyone who has ever been a child … knows how ridiculous that statement is.

Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University who is a witness in the same case, said, “I nearly fell off my chair when I read that deposition. Three- and 4-year-olds do not yet have logical reasoning abilities. It’s preposterous, frankly, to think they could be taught enough about immigration law to be able to represent themselves in court.”

While cameras aren’t permitted in the courtrooms during child deportation hearings, there are transcripts. Filmmaker Linda Freedman, working with the non-profit Immigration Counseling Service, used actual transcripts to re-create what happens in deportation court. The roles in the film, which can be seen at the Unaccompanied: Alone in America website (unaccompaniedchildren.org), are played by a retired judge and others. But the words are real.

It’s heartbreaking. It’s infuriating. And worst of all, it’s America.