Friend,
No child should have to face our nation’s complex immigration system alone. As the only non-profit in the country that connects immigrant children and youth in federal detention with independent Child Advocates, I am writing to tell you how the Young Center plays a key role in ensuring children who arrive to the U.S. alone have a community in their corner to defend their rights, safety, and well-being.
Our approach is child-centered, interdisciplinary, individualized, and fierce. Through Direct Services work spearheaded by our Child Advocate Program, we fight for children’s release from detention to family and their right to apply for protection in the US as well as safe repatriation support to children returning to their home country.
We leverage our 21 years of expertise through our Technical Assistance Program. Technical assistance is an opportunity to improve the outcomes for immigrant children who are also caught in the child welfare system—an outcome that is rapidly ramping up as a result of ICE’s skyrocketing interior enforcement efforts. In the last year, we’ve also invested significantly more resources to support those families separated by ICE, so that they can reunify in the U.S. or their home country.
Through our Policy work, we seek to build systems that see immigrant children as children, and center children’s rights and best interests in all decisions. That means challenging federal policies that undermine children’s safety—like arresting family members who try to sponsor a child’s release from detention—and developing new legislation that would offer welcome and dignity to every immigrant child.
Our Litigation program drives systemic change and protects policies that promote the safety, wellbeing, and best interests of immigrant children. Just this year we joined litigation to stop the secret, midnight returns of Guatemalan children and filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to shed light on how the administration is using unaccompanied children as “bait” to arrest undocumented family members.
In a country with systems that too often treat children as just another case number to process, the Young Center fights for approaches that see children as children. Throughout, we endeavor to be a consistent, caring presence during each child’s journey and to be that person that each child knows they have in their corner.
Help us raise $100,000 by Giving Tuesday to support the Young Center today. Your contributions will be matched dollar for dollar up to every $25,000.00 raised.
Will you join us in standing in a child’s corner?
Thank you,
