Dear Colleagues,

Over the last year, The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) and The Children's Village have worked on a joint report titled Where We Stand: A 20-Year Retrospective of the Unaccompanied Children's Program in the United States. The retrospective reviewed the Unaccompanied Children's Program from the passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 until today. It assessed 20 years of legislation, policies, litigation, and, most importantly, the U.S. federal government's care of unaccompanied migrating children, with a view toward the next steps and improvements for the years ahead.

On April 25^th, 2023, we released the report in Washington D.C. and hosted a panel discussion featuring:

• Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (D- TX) of the 29th District;

• Gerson Navidad, a former unaccompanied child from El Salvador and student at UC Berkley;

• Jeremy Kohomban, President and CEO of The Children's Village; and

• Eskinder Negash, President and CEO of USCRI and former Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. 

To folks who joined us in person, thank you for joining us to reflect on the past 20 years of the Unaccompanied Children's Program and discuss today's challenge. Please stay tuned for our release in New York City. We are so excited to share the completed retrospective with you all. Please click here or the image below to read the entire retrospective!

Writing the retrospective has truly been a pleasure, and I would like to dedicate this report to the thousands of unaccompanied children who have made the treacherous journey to search for safety in the United States.

Please email me if you have any questions.

Best,

Jenny

Jenny Rodriguez (she/her/ella)

Policy Analyst

Arlington VA | 703-310-1130 x 3150

Refugees.org

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