House amendment to H.98 would add expedited ‘standby’ guardianships for children when parents face immigration action

Eric Fitzpatrick, an attorney in the Office of Legislative Counsel, told the House committee on May 7 that the Senate amendment to H.98 adds a new expedited probate process—a “standby guardianship”—to allow a chosen guardian to assume care for a child when a custodial parent is rendered unavailable because of an adverse immigration action.

The proposal adds a narrowly defined circumstance to the existing statutory list of reasons the probate division may approve a consensual guardianship and creates filing, consent, hearing and termination rules for the standby guardianship.

Fitzpatrick summarized the change and its purpose: “This adds one more to that list … when a custodial parent of the child is unavailable to care for the child because the parent has been subject to an adverse immigration action,” he said. The amendment, originally Senate S.95, was attached to H.98 and adds a new statutory section describing the standby guardianship procedure.

Why it matters: Committee members and staff said the amendment is intended to avoid children entering state custody when their custodial parent is taken into federal immigration custody; the standby guardianship lets parents, a proposed guardian and counsel file a consensual guardianship agreement in advance and, if a parent is detained, have an expedited probate process to place the child with the chosen guardian instead of transferring the child to Department for Children and…