The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) and The Children’s Village present Where We Stand: A 20-Year Retrospective of the Unaccompanied Children’s Program in the United States.

The retrospective reviews the Unaccompanied Children‘s Program from the passage of the Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002 until today. It assesses 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.

Over the years, the involved federal agencies, Congress, and nonprofit and advocacy organizations have worked to make changes as the program continued to have tremendous growth. Although the implementation of the changes was often slow, it was made, and many of those changes have resulted in a better system of care for unaccompanied children. USCRI and The Children’s Village will continue to highlight the experiences of the past, using them to inform our current work with unaccompanied children, and building on them to make recommendations for program improvements so that all children can move through their journeys in safety, with their rights protected, and with hope for their futures.

Click here to read the full report and the executive summary.

For more information about the Retrospective, see our resources page.