SPRING 2025: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR UPDATE
This year, the Young Center is commemorating 20 years of advocating for immigrant children. As we observe this milestone, we want to reflect on how far your support has taken us over the years. Thanks to your commitment, we have grown from modest beginnings operating out of the University of Chicago to a nationwide organization serving children in every corner of the country.
We’ve built up our model for child advocacy into a full-fledged program that has fought for the best interests of more than 8,000 children. Your support has also allowed the Young Center to establish a presence on Capitol Hill, better equipping us in our advocacy and our ability to adapt to policy changes. In 2022 we established the Technical Assistance Program, which boosted our ability to create systemic change in child welfare and juvenile justice and allowed for our best interest approach to be made available to undocumented children in state courts. This, in addition to every individual child’s case that we have handled over the previous two decades, has only been made possible by your passion and generosity.
As we move forward into the next twenty years, we are faced with an immigration landscape that presents daunting challenges. Nevertheless, our commitment remains unwavering. Now more than ever, immigrant children need advocates voicing their best interests as they navigate proceedings. To that end, we will center our work through four guiding principles:
Maximize safety – By minimizing the time children spend in government custody and utilizing regulatory protections, we will ensure that children are properly shielded through proceedings and refine our advocacy to better represent their interests.
Keep families intact – We will continue to fight to reunite separated families and strive to keep children safe and supported in their communities.
Demand equitable proceedings – We will level the playing field for children going through proceedings designed to disadvantage them and continue our advocacy work to represent children’s best interests.
Change the narrative – We will combat the rhetoric of those attempting to demean and criminalize immigrant children by expanding our ethical storytelling initiative, ensuring that youth and their families are able to tell their own stories in their own words.
In anticipation of the challenges ahead of us, we are officially forming a litigation team this year. This is an all-encompassing shift, ranging from increasing our legal research and combining litigation with our policy program, to collaborating with key stakeholders already operating in the field. Research by NYU Law shows that litigation against federal agencies succeeded nearly 80% of the time, making litigation a powerful tool to protect vulnerable children. If you or anyone that you know would be interested in bolstering these efforts through pro bono work, please reach out to donations@theyoungcenter.org to get started.
Once again, we want to take this time of reflection to thank you for all that you’ve made possible. Your support has made a tremendous impact on the Young Center, and even more so for the children we have served. Every child advocated for, every family brought back together, every better life realized – you have empowered all these accomplishments. With your backing, we will be to do even more over the next 20 years.
