Webinar discusses impact of incident reporting on immigrant children in government custody

Last week, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights held a webinar which discussed the organizations' recent report, Punishing Trauma: Incident Reporting and Immigrant Children in Government Custody.

Co-authors Azadeh Erfani of NIJC and Jane Liu of the Young Center discussed their findings regarding how the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) uses “Significant Incident Reports” (SIRs) to document a wide array of information about unaccompanied immigrant children in its custody, from disclosures of past abuse to minor rule infractions or behavior challenges within ORR facilities. They also presented on how these reports have become a driving force of ORR’s disciplinary structure rather than a tool to ensure children receive the care they need. NIJC and the Young Center call for a complete transformation of ORR’s reporting system to truly center the needs and safety of children.