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With children arriving at our borders each day to seek protection, the Young Center is advocating with federal agencies to ensure children are safe, have access to legal services, and are released and reunited with their families as quickly as possible. We have also asked the government to end the process of separating children from trusted adult family members at the border. In recent weeks, we’ve toured emergency sites along the border and met with senior officials in federal agencies and at the White House to voice our concerns about continued family separation and conditions facing children at the border and share our recommendations for fundamental change.
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On Thursday, May 13, Young Center supporters, staff, volunteers, and ambassadors gathered online to celebrate the courage and resilience of immigrant children. We honored our very first Waymaker: Founder and Executive Director Maria Woltjen, who will be retiring at the end of June after 18 years of passionately fighting for unaccompanied immigrant children and changing the system to integrate child protection principles into practice, policy, and the law. We witnessed a beautiful retelling of Young Center Client Vida Opoku's story. We enjoyed music from the Grammy-nominated Sones de México Ensemble. We celebrated Young Center Waymakers around the country. We are so thankful to everyone who participated in the event and made it a success. Click here to watch the highlights from our Spring Soirée. You can still donate to support the event and help us reach our goal of $300,000.
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Maria Woltjen founded the Young Center in 2004 to advocate for the rights and best interests of unaccompanied and separated immigrant children facing deportation. At the time, there was no Child Advocate for children in immigration proceedings—nothing like a guardian ad litem to focus specifically on the child’s best interests. Maria built the Child Advocate's role and a team of advocates around the country. Once a one-person organization, today the Young Center is a national organization with nearly 80 staff members in eight offices across the country. The organization has protected the rights and best interests of thousands of unaccompanied and separated children from more than 80 countries across the world. For her service to children and the advocacy community, Maria was the recipient of the 1996 Public Interest Law Initiative Distinguished Alumni Award, the 2013 American Constitution Society Ruth Goldman Award, the 2017 UNICEF Chicago Humanitarian Award, the 2019 American Red Cross of Chicago and Northern Illinois Global Citizenship Hero, and the Young Center's inaugural 2021 Waymaker Award, which was presented by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. We've collected messages of support and well wishes from Young Center staff, volunteers, and supporters for Maria as she begins a new chapter of her life.
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Earlier this month, Young Center’s Board of Directors announced that it selected Gladis Molina Alt as the organization’s next Executive Director, starting June 28. Born in El Salvador during its civil war in the 1980s, Gladis was brought to the United States at the age of 10 as her family sought refuge in Los Angeles. From a young age, her experience as an undocumented immigrant child and young adult inspired Gladis to become an immigration attorney and advocate on behalf of immigrant children. Gladis has served immigrant children seeking safety and their families since 2005 at some of the most respected organizations representing and advocating for children, most recently as the Child Advocate Program Director at the Young Center. We are so excited and proud to stand with Gladis as she leads the Young Center into the future.
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Immigration judges are not required to consider children's best interests when making decisions about their cases. This often leads to family separation, deportations that place children in harm's way, prolonged and unnecessary detention, etc. For 18 years, the Young Center has argued that immigration judges—and all federal officials—must consider children’s best interests in every decision. Join our upcoming webinar to learn more about how we identify and fight for children's best interests in immigration court and our advocacy to create a “best interests of the child” mandate in federal law and policy.
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"I came to the United States at the age of five with my family. Being undocumented posed many obstacles for my whole family. Not knowing the language nor having family near you can be a difficult situation for children to go through. That is why I want to continue aiding the Young Center and immigrant children so I can be the children’s support system, something I did not have growing up undocumented in America."
--Luis Acosta, Young Center-Harlingen Volunteer Child Advocate
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