Maria Woltjen on the Young Center's History of Advocating for Immigrant Children

Advocating for the Best Interests of Immigrant Children

When I began this work in 2004, 8,000 unaccompanied children arrived at the border each year. Last year, the number of children crossing the border – all on their own – reached 50,000. Most of the children are coming from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, countries experiencing unrelenting violence, poverty, and hunger. It’s a humanitarian crisis of major proportions.

Before founding the Young Center, I worked in children’s rights, not immigration. I was shocked to learn that when it comes to immigrant children, there is no “best interests of the child” standard in immigration law and no mention of safety when a child was at risk of deportation. My charge was to create a program to advocate for the best interests of unaccompanied children, all of whom were being held in detention.

We relied on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and each state’s best interest standards in child welfare law to craft our arguments. We found that immigration judges, asylum officers, even some enforcement officials wanted information about a child and his or her family before making a decision about placement or release. Many were clearly uncomfortable making a decision about returning a nine-year-old to his or her home country without knowing to whom they would return, whether there was a parent in the picture, or whether the child would be safe. In 2008, we had the first of many small victories. In the waning days of the Bush Administration, Congress reauthorized the federal anti-trafficking law, with a new provision giving the federal government authority to appoint independent child advocates to represent the best interests of unaccompanied children. Our child advocates are now requested so often that we have waiting lists at every one of our sites.

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