MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
As I’m writing this, May 21, 2020, we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools have closed to protect the health of students and families. Businesses have closed to protect public health. But that’s not the case for immigration court for unaccompanied and separated children. In Harlingen, Texas, children are still required to appear in-person in immigration court. The children wait in crowded vans in a parking lot, sitting shoulder to shoulder, until it’s their turn to go inside the building where they go through security and wait in the lobby. Everyone in the building—immigration judge, court personnel, shelter staff and the children—risks being exposed and carrying the virus into the community and back to the detention facilities. Children are living in close quarters, sitting together in the dining hall, sharing bathrooms and showers. From every angle, we’re vigorously advocating for the federal government to release children from custody, safely reunify them with family, and postpone all non-emergency immigration court hearings.
Most egregiously, under the cover of COVID-19 and a new order that scraps decades-long protections for children in the anti-trafficking law, the administration is turning away children at the border. In some instances, ICE is flying children directly back to their home countries with no assessment of whether they have a parent to return to, whether they’ve been trafficked, or whether they’ll be homeless. At some ports of entry, children are being walked right back over the bridge to Mexico. The Young Center’s policy team is aggressively fighting back, rallying the public and members of Congress.
2019. It seems so long ago, but it was another record year. More than 76,000 unaccompanied children arrived at the U.S. southern border. Although the administration ended the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018, throughout 2019 and into 2020, DHS continues to separate children from their parents, more than a thousand to date. The Young Center was appointed Child Advocate to hundreds of these children, advocating for their reunification with parents and family.
In January 2019, DHS launched the Remain in Mexico policy which forces asylum applicants to wait in Mexico for months on end in unsanitary and unsafe tent encampments until their cases are called for hearings. Along with other Young Center staff, in January 2020, I spent three days in the Matamoros camp, just across the border from our Harlingen office. There were so many young children and parents worried about their children’s safety. We came away with a list of things to do. First and foremost, we locate the children who decide to come to the border alone and assign Child Advocates. Our Child Advocates meet with the children while they’re in custody and advocate for reunification with their families. Our staff of fierce advocates continue to fight for the rights and best interests of children whose families are stuck in Mexico, as well as unaccompanied and separated children.
It is a changed world, and our work is more critical than ever. Thanks to the ongoing support of donors large and small, foundations and corporate sponsors, and volunteer Child Advocates, we’ll continue fighting for these children on every front.
Thank you,
Maria Woltjen
Founder and Executive Director
Young Center Child Advocates stand in the justice gap—advocating for the rights and best interests of unaccompanied and separated children who face an immigration system that doesn’t see them as children. The Young Center advocates for the most vulnerable children including infants and toddlers, children forcibly separated from their parents at the border, children who have experienced violence, children who have fled homelessness, and children who have no family in the U.S. We serve children from all corners of the world. Thanks to your support, we served more children than ever before in 2019.
Program Updates
The Young Center is the only organization in the nation that provides independent Child Advocates for unaccompanied and separated immigrant children. Working out of eight offices across the country we served children in government custody in Chicago, Harlingen, Houston, Washington, D.C., New York, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. In 2019, we also served several children in shelters in Michigan remotely. Each of our offices maintains waiting lists of children referred for Child Advocates. This year, with the support of philanthropists, family foundations, and donors big and small, we added staff in all eight of our offices to respond to the ongoing challenges facing immigrant children and we were able to take many more cases off of the waiting lists.
Policy Updates
The Young Center fights for policy changes with Congress and federal agencies across a range of issues impacting immigrant children. We are working hard to ensure that our immigration system treats children as children and incorporates a best interests of the child standard in law, policy, and practice. In 2019, with your support, our policy team grew from two to four staff members. With this increased capacity, we were able to take on more key issues impacting immigrant children than ever before and expand our influence on Capitol Hill, building new relationships with dozens of Members of Congress.
The Young Center’s work for unaccompanied and separated immigrant children is made possible largely by the contributions of tens of thousands of passionate supporters. Thank you for supporting us in this urgent work.
Report cover by Belle Yang. Artist-author Belle Yang makes her home in Carmel, California with her mother Laning. Her father Joseph, who walked out of war-torn China as a young man and is the hero of much of her work, died in 2019. Her website is belleyang.com, and her art is represented by Hauk Fine Arts in Pacific Grove, California (haukfinearts.com). Amy Tan writes that Belle Yang has “created a world we can lose ourselves in.” Maxine Hong Kingston calls her “our Isaac Bashevis Singer and Marc Chagall.” Gifted as an artist and writer, she has written and illustrated two highly-praised literary works, “Baba: A Return to China Upon My Father’s Shoulders” and “The Odyssey of a Manchurian.” She followed with the powerful graphic novel “Forget Sorrow.” She is also the author-artist of a dozen children’s books, including an autobiographical immigrant story told from a child’s point of view, “My Name Is Hannah.”