Young Center 2020 Annual Report
Today, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights released our 2020 annual report which details our fight to protect immigrant children’s rights, safety, and well-being during one of the toughest years we’ve ever experienced and highlights the incredible impact Young Center supporters have made possible.
Click here to read the report.
Last year, as the Trump administration intensified its assaults on the rights of immigrant children and families, Young Center staff and volunteers served more than 1,200 new unaccompanied and separated children.
We made sure children don't face the system by themselves, that their voices are heard, and that their rights are protected.
We fought to reunite families and to win children’s release from government custody.
We prevented children from going to adult immigration jail on their 18th birthdays, helped children of all ages connect with the services they need to thrive, secured children’s release from hotel jails along the border, and persuaded immigration judges and asylum officers to consider children’s best interests as part of their immigration case.
We advocated for the safe and timely repatriation of children who wished to return to their home countries during a global pandemic.
We also fought tooth and nail on Capitol Hill to preserve the legal protections children have in our immigration system and to create entirely new processes where they are treated and recognized first as children.
None of this would have been possible without the support of individuals around the country and the world who contributed to our work through donations, fundraisers, and highlighting our work in their communities and on social media. Thank you for being Waymakers for immigrant children.
Click here to contribute to the fight for children's rights.
Report cover: “Tadpoles” 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,” from which “Tadpoles” originates.