From Persecution to Prison - Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of ...

The dentists didn’t explain anything. The guard explained why theywere doing X-rays. The officer told me I was over 18 years.Medical StandardsLawyers, journalists, and activists from different parts of the country havereported that the INS subjects young people to dental and bone exams todetermine age. Yet medical experts and medical studies have demonstratedthe variability and inaccuracy of these exams.Many advocates have said that their underage clients have been incorrectlydeemed adults by the INS based on these exams. 152 In fact, TheSouthern Poverty Law Center, a leading American civil rights group, hasbeen preparing a class-action lawsuit on the age assessment issue againstthe INS. 153 Several news stories described this practice, including one publishedreport that a single dentist examined, for the INS, an estimated1,500 young persons in New York City alone. 154 In addition to New York,media reports described the cases of young people in Miami, Florida 155and Harlingen, Texas. 156The dental exams look at the eruption of molars and the developmentof wisdom teeth and the wrist X-ray measures the fusion of bones in thewrist. From these tests, dentists offer conclusions as to whether the youngperson is 18 years or older.Several medical experts have criticized the federal government’s relianceon age testing and emphasized the inaccuracy of this practice. Dr. Nalton Ferraro,D.M.D., M.D., in a public comment to the INS on this practice wrote:“A fundamental concept is being ignored in the current INS approachto ‘age testing’: chronologic age, dental age and skeletal (bone) age are notnecessarily the same in a given individual. In fact, deviation among thesethree ‘ages’ is common and well appreciated in pediatric medical and den-152Personal PHR communications with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American BarAssociation and Latham & Watkins.153Malkin, M. Just a Number: The Malvo Age Issue, National Review, October 31, 2002.Available at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-malkin103102.asp.Accessed December 2, 2002.154Elsner, A. “New York Dentists Decides Fate of Immigrants”, Reuters, January 11, 2002[Elsner, Dentists Settle Fate]-; New York Times, US Weighs the Fate of Child Immigrants,March 28, 2002; Solomon, A. Kids in Captivity: Scared and Alone, Nearly 5000 ChildrenWind Up in INS Detention Each Year, The Village Voice, February 27-March 5, 2002; Elsner,Harsh Fate Can Await Young Refugees in U.S., Reuters, December 20, 2001 [Elsner, HarshFate]; New York Times, “Crucial I.N.S. Gatekeeper: The Airport Dentist,” July 22, 2000.155The Associated Press State & Local Wire, Somalian teen granted conditional parole fromINS, Associated Press, March 17, 2000156Pinkerton, J. Immigrant advocates claim minors being held in adult detention camp; However,INS official insists that dental exams prove detainees’ ages, The Houston Chronicle,September 20, 1998.130 FROM PERSECUTION TO PRISON