Immigration strategies

Special collection

Every day, organizations worldwide are engaged in a collective two steps forward, one step back march toward improved immigration services and policies. What hard-earned lessons are these nonprofits, and the foundations that support them, learning from their persistent efforts? This collection of evaluations, case studies, and lessons learned exposes and explores the nuances of effective collaboration, the value of coordinated messaging, the bedrock of ongoing advocacy efforts, and the vital importance of long-term and flexible funding.

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Changing the Narrative for Multilingual Learners

July 14, 2023

In 2022, California funders focused on multilingual and early education gathered for a series of learning conversations about how narrative change could positively impact the movement for multilingual education. In the sessions, narrative practitioners, advocates, funders, and evaluators offered these key insights for understanding and supporting narrative change:Narratives, which shape how people see the world and each other, are at the heart of movements for social change.Narrative change is collective work that has more impact when many voices and partners organize themselves around the same narrative.In developing narratives to support multilingual learners, it's essential to engage people with lived experience including students, educators, and families.When partners embrace a unifying narrative, it can align and accelerate work across policy advocacy, organizing, communications, the arts, and other areas.Narrative change is long-term work that requires persistence and multiple strategies to challenge and shift the deep-seated beliefs that uphold injustice.Evaluators have many ways to measure the progress and impact of narrative strategies upon organizations, networks, and in the public dialogue.Funding narrative change requires a different way of thinking than traditional grantmaking focused on discrete projects with short-term outcomes.

Children

Recommendations for Serving Unaccompanied and Separated Children at Regional Processing Centers

June 16, 2023

As the United States' leading organization protecting the rights of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) has advocated for expanded access to lawful migration pathways for children and families so that fewer children face a dangerous journey seeking safety or needlessly become separated from their family along the way. The U.S. government's announcement that new Regional Processing Centers (RPCs) will be created to serve migrants seeking protection is a welcome step forward. Informed by our on-the-ground experience, KIND recommends the following to ensure that Regional Processing Centers, also known as Oficinas de Movilidad Segura, best address the needs of children on the move.

Children

Building Social Cohesion Among Diverse Youth During COVID-19: Insights from the Pilot Phase of the Youth Unity Project

June 8, 2023

The United States has a long, complex history of immigration that has shaped how we view the country—its strengths, its shortcomings, as well as its promise to be a sum greater than its parts. For us to reach our fullest potential as individuals and as a nation, it is incumbent on us to understand and explore our many immigration journeys. However, public debate around immigration is more divisive now than it has been in generations. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, this widening divide has quickly created an environment in which youth, both new immigrants and those within the receiving community, feel less connected, engaged, and empowered to create their own, bold vision for a cohesive nation.The Youth Unity Project, a joint effort created by Y-USA and the Council, connects young, new immigrants with young people in their respective receiving communities and teaches them about immigration in the United States. Throughout the process, the young people engage on issues related to social justice, belonging, and social cohesion.

Children; Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Hope and uncertainty: A needs assessment of Ukrainian youth refugees in Romania and Moldova

May 4, 2023

Youth are a significant proportion of refugees fleeing from Ukraine, particularly female youth. In Romania and Moldova, more than half of the refugees there are between the ages of 18 and 59.The findings we discovered together show great needs amid strong hope for a secure future. Language was found to be an overarching need that affects every aspect of youth's lives. Economic support, through secure jobs and stable integration, are the most cited need. Ukrainian youth appreciated the safety of their host communities but still live with anxiety over their futures. Feelings of isolation and distance from family and friends displaced by the conflict contribute to the mental strain youth feel. Youth also have practical suggestions for how to serve their needs, calling for language support and community centers where they can connect meaningfully with their peers and communities.

Children; Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Ensuring Humane and Orderly Processing of Unaccompanied Children at the U.S.-Mexico Border

January 6, 2023

As the Biden Administration prepares to end the use of Title 42 expulsions, it must refrain from any actions that restrict access to humanitarian protection in the United States. In preparation for the end of the policy, the Administration can and should adopt the below recommendations on an immediate and long-term basis to ensure operational efficiency, due process, and individual safety in the reception of unaccompanied children and other migrants at the border.

Children

Return and Reintegration of Unaccompanied Migrant Children

August 10, 2022

KIND created the Child Migrant Return and Reintegration Program to ensure that returning children have the support and resources they need for safe return and successful reintegration back into their communities. This infographic explains the existing return process and describes how KIND's program interventions can support children at each step.

Children

A Time of Transformation: 2021 Annual Report

August 4, 2022

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is the preeminent U.S.-based nongovernmental organization devoted to the protection of unaccompanied and separated children. KIND envisions a world in which every unaccompanied child on the move has access to legal counsel and has their rights and well-being protected as they migrate alone in search of safety.

Children

Learning from Youth: Envisioning Freedom for Unaccompanied Children

June 30, 2022

Hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children and youth from around the world have arrived in the United States over the past decade seeking protection from violence, persecution, war, and insecurity. Yet, their reception into the country has often led them into an immigration system characterized by systematic criminalization, a lack of transparency, and separation from their families. The reception system for children arriving to the United States needs to be reformed to demonstrate respect for their basic human dignity. In interviews and group discussions, Vera engaged with 32 young adults who were detained as unaccompanied minors by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). They shared their stories about navigating the complex U.S. immigration system. Drawing from their lived experience and expertise, they developed 10 proposals to reform the reception system for unaccompanied children and youth in a way that centers their freedom, safety, and family unity.

Children

Affective Cartographies: Migrant, Displaced, And Refugee Girls And Adolescent Girls In Latin America And The Caribbean

June 20, 2022

Being a girl or an adolescent girl is no simple task in a time of multiple socialization demands to access the adult world. But being a migrant, displaced, or refugee girl or adolescent girl is even more complex, not only due to the difficulties stemming from sociocultural and economic standards, but also due to the uprooting that girls and adolescent girls are subjected to when they are forced to leave their country of origin. This report produced jointly by HIAS and UNICEF highlights the main needs and challenges for girls and adolescent girls, including forms of violence they experience during their processes of migration and forced displacement.

Children; Refugees & Asylum Seekers

From Trauma to Development: A Policy Agenda for an Equitable Future for Young Children of Immigrants

May 19, 2022

By 2025, children of immigrants will make up nearly one-third of the U.S. child population. More than 94 percent of children of immigrants under the age of six are U.S. citizens, symbolizing a shift in the face of the nation. The ability of young children to learn, grow, and succeed defines what our nation will become, and yet, children of immigrants often lack the necessary resources to grow to their full potential. Additionally, due to a host of factors including their parents' journeys to the United States, socioeconomic status, citizenship status, language fluency, and the disruptions and destabilizations of the COVID-19 pandemic, the children of immigrants are also coping with trauma that, without proper resources and care, could leave them struggling throughout their whole lives. Relying on interviews with immigrant parents, experts, and advocates in the immigrant and child advocacy spaces, as well as a growing body of early education research, this report summarizes the barriers to learning, growth, and development for young children of immigrants and the policy solutions--like access to early education tailored to their families' particular needs--that could help them to overcome not only the social, educational, and economic barriers they face, but also to heal from trauma and live happy, healthy lives in the United States.

Children

Turning 18 and Undocumented: Supporting Children in their Transition to Adulthood

May 4, 2022

For thousands of migrant children and young people in Europe, turning 18 means transitioning into an uncertain future, with too few resources to navigate this new phase in life. The safeguards that international and EU law guarantee to children, regardless of their residence status, no longer apply once they turn 18. Children lose preferential access to support and services like health care, specialised social workers, schooling and training, or a guardian. This loss of child rights, called 'ageing out', is a fact for all children who turn 18. But for hundreds of thousands of children with a precarious residence status, ageing out not only means losing the fundamental rights they held as children, but also becoming undocumented on their 18th birthday.In PICUM´s new report, the organisation provides an overview of how European countries facilitate or hinder access to secure residence status for children and young people ageing out. In addition, PICUM highlights promising policies and practices and recommends ways forward.

Children

Educating English Learners During the Pandemic: Insights from Experts, Advocates, and Practitioners

April 13, 2022

There is a growing body of evidence about the disproportionate impact the pandemic had on English learners (ELs). We sought to capture the complexity of learning conditions for this student population during the COVID-19 pandemic by interviewing 20 EL education leaders. These experts' experiences revealed that while remote learning posed significant challenges to EL education and services, educators improvised, collaborated, and continued to innovate throughout the pandemic. To help EL students moving forward, education leaders on all levels must acknowledge both the struggle and perseverance that shaped their educational experiences during the pandemic.

Children