The process of legally immigrating to the U.S. can take years, even when individuals are escaping traumatic and sometimes life-threatening situations. Immigration policies for children can be even more drawn out and complicated. Dalia Castillo-Granados, the co-founder of the Children’s Immigration Law Academy, and Aimee Korolev, the legal director at the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), share their perspective on the challenges for children who need legal advice and support—especially those who may arrive in as unaccompanied minors. [Transcript | Video]
5 takeaways:
➀ The label “unaccompanied children” is relatively new in immigration circles. Children and youth have traveled alone across American borders for decades, but an official term was defined in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Castillo-Granados said that designation occurred because of the conditions children were being detained in under the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Services agency. INS was dismantled after the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the Department of Homeland Security was created. The care of children was transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
An unaccompanied child is someone under 18 years of age, has no lawful immigration status, and no parent or legal guardian in the US available to provide care and physical custody. Castillo-Granados said most are from Central America, with the top three countries of origin being Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. “We see very few children that come across or that make it to ORR from Mexico, and that’s because of US policy…..if you are a child from Mexico, then you would be automatically returned to Mexico. The technical term is that you can withdraw your admission from the US unless a CBP (Customs and Border Protection) agent believes you have a credible fear of returning to Mexico.”
➁ Resettlement shelters are detention centers. In some ways, unaccompanied children are more protected than children traveling with their families, meaning once a Customs and Border Protection officer detains an unaccompanied child, the officer transfers the child from a Customs and Border Protection holding facility to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter within 72 hours. Castillo-Granados said about 10,000 children were in shelter care in mid-December 2022 for an average stay of 28 days. She said 72% of children were over the age of 14 and about two-thirds of them were boys. Korolev said since ProBAR was founded in 1989, detentions have increased, and with them the need for legal counsel. “Even though they’re ORR shelters, they are detention centers, so they are jails for young children,” she said.
➂ Children immigrate to the U.S. for a variety of reasons. The UNHCR reported that children immigrate to the U.S. because they feel unsafe, either in their communities or homes, because they are extremely impoverished or lack food. “Once a child decides that they need to leave their community, then the next thing to do is decide where they’re going to go, and sometimes children come to the U.S. because they might have a family member here,” Castillo-Granados said. She said generally, by the time children immigrate they have someone to live within the U.S. “Children, most of them, are going to integrate into communities and be part of our community, and so their path is much longer than just what happens at the border.”
➃ Unaccompanied youth need help in understanding the laws around immigration. Anyone who appears in immigration court has a right to counsel, Castillo-Granados said. They just don’t have a right to counsel at the government’s expense. “So, if a child is not able to get not a pro bono attorney from one of the legal service providers, or their family can’t afford an attorney, then they would have to represent themselves, and that does happen way more often than necessary.”
Korolev says you can’t overstate the way being detained affects a child’s psyche. “The decision in these cases will affect someone’s life. It is a noncriminal administrative proceeding, and so the US laws did not mandate that the government provide counsel. So, while we’ll get Health and Human Services to try to provide additional resources to children to allow counsel, similar to some of the work we do, and our mission at our respective organizations, it’s not a requirement.”
➄ Providing comfort is key. “Having a traumatic experience by itself unfortunately doesn’t allow you to be here,” Korolev said. “Unless you can prove the reason is grounded in law, then you can have protection from deportation, and you can have lawful status to remain in the U.S.”
For legal advisors, it can be difficult to emphasize the importance of being open about the reasons children immigrate while still providing comfort and developing rapport. Korolev said ProBAR treats individuals “holistically” as people beyond their cases, but the process is complicated. “It’s really hard for a child to open up to a stranger or anyone about those experiences,” she said.
This program was sponsored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
