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Read the compelling stories of unaccompanied children and how Las Americas has helped
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Every year thousands of immigrants from as far away as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Ecuador arrive in El Paso, TX, the poorest major metropolitan area in Texas and the fifth poorest city in the U.S.
In 1987, Las Americas staff begin seeing immigrant children in immigration court with only a translator to accompany them. "When no one else would," Las Americas began representing unaccompaned immigrant children. Among these recent immigrants are unaccompanied children who travel to the U.S. alone to escape abuse, neglect, and persecution in their home countries.
Disenfranchised and cut off from their families, these children are unable to access a proper education and cannot afford legal representation to assist in obtaining release from the Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (I.C.E.) and reuniting with family members in the U.S.
Without adequate legal representation, these children remain in detention until their cases are closed, which in many cases can take as long as a year, or are forced to be deported and sent back to the same situations from which they fled.
The majority of the unaccompanied children in the El Paso area are detained at the Southwest Key Detention Facilities in El Paso and Canutillo, TX that house a maximum of 187 children at any given time.
Las Americas’ Justice for Women and Children Project (JWCP) responds to the needs of unaccompanied children in Office of Refugee Resettlement detention by:
- providing free legal counseling and advocacy; - representing all of the children at the facility in immigration court;
- helping the children reunite with their families in the U.S.; and
-helping the children who are eligible apply for special benefits, asylum, and other relief to remain in the U.S.
Through JWCP’s legal advocacy and counseling, the lives of unaccompanied immigrant children are greatly improved. Without JWCP’s assistance, many children would be left to forsake their legal rights and be sent back to their countries, regardless of their meritorious claims for asylum, family reunification, or other relief.
JWCP achieves the following outcomes for these children: release from detention; immigrant, asylee, or citizen status in the U.S.; arrangements for family reunification; and improved living conditions for children while they are in detention.
JWCP provides the bulk of legal representation for the detained children and have obtained release or began the process for at least 80% of the children being held in detention. In recent years, harsher ICE (former I.N.S.) policies have limited Las Americas’ ability to secure release for unaccompanied children.
Nevertheless JWCP continues to work with ICE and ORR officials to create more humane policies that favor family reunification and to secure the well-being of unaccompanied children while in detention and upon their release.
For JWCP staff, the ultimate measure of change is the number of cases that result in the children’s release from detention with the opportunity for family reunification or other appropriate and safe placements.
JWCP monitors the number of child clients in our caseload, the status of their cases, and the resulting outcomes of their cases. Prior to closing each child’s case, staff collects data through post-project surveys to determine whether the case reached a favorable outcome for the child.
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