Express Injustice
Expedited Immigration Hearings Pose Danger to Detained Children’s Right to a Fair Process
Legal Services for Unaccompanied Children
Related Work
Walls and Bridges
Legal Recourse for Immigrants in the Age of Zero Tolerance
Language Access Resources for Working with Unaccompanied Children
A significant number of children who enter Office of Refugee Resettlement custody do not speak English. Communicating with these children can be challenging for attorneys and other service providers. To respond to this need, Vera’s Unaccompanied Children Legal Services Program has produced three resources: Glossary of Legal Spanish - A bilingual (E ...
Unaccompanied youth voice their struggle for identity and inclusion
Last year, attention surrounding unaccompanied youth reached a fevered pitch. Traveling alone and often fleeing escalating violence in their home countries, unaccompanied youth—undocumented minors under the age of 18 who are in the United States without a parent or legal guardian to provide them with care or custody—became front page news. By the e ...
Blog Post
Karen Berberich
Finding Free or Low-Cost Legal Help
Vera’s Unaccompanied Children Program has prepared a directory of legal service organizations that provide free or low-cost immigration legal assistance and representation for non-detained children in immigration proceedings. The directory, which is organized alphabetically by state, includes the types of legal assistance provided by each organizat ...
Unaccompanied Children Pro Bono Directory
This resource contains a list of legal service organizations that provide free or low-cost immigration legal assistance and representation for non-detained children in immigration proceedings. This list is comprised of mostly non-Vera affiliated organizations, but also includes those Vera/DCS Legal Access Project subcontractors who may be able to a ...
The Flow of Unaccompanied Children through the Immigration System
A Resource for Practitioners, Policymakers, and Researchers
Every year, thousands of unaccompanied children are detained in the U.S. immigrant system. These children—who are not afforded the right to free public defense—must often navigate a web of laws, policies, and government agencies alone. Vera, with funding from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), works with a national network of legal service p ...
Using Telephonic Interpreters
Mindfulness and Mastery
This webinar was designed for legal services providers in Vera’s Legal Orientation Program and Unaccompanied Children’s Program networks who work with clients who do not speak English or Spanish. The presentation provides practical tips for how to prepare for a telephonic interpretation, the Do’s and Don’ts for conducting the call, and how to close ...
Using Telephonic Interpreters
Mindfulness and Mastery
This webinar was designed for legal services providers in Vera’s Legal Orientation Program and Unaccompanied Children’s Program networks who work with clients who do not speak English or Spanish. The presentation provides practical tips for how to prepare for a telephonic interpretation, the Do’s and Don’ts for conducting the call, and how to close ...
Promoting Justice in the Immigration System
Legal Access for Unaccompanied Children
The Vera Institute of Justice has worked with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and nonprofit legal service providers to administer the Unaccompanied Children Pro Bono Pilot Project (UCPBP) since 2005. This innovative program provides legal information and pro bono legal representation to children who are facing deportation while in ...
Unaccompanied Children in the United States
A Literature Review
This literature review, which examines articles by an assortment of scholars, advocates, and practicing attorneys, provides an overview of the published research on unaccompanied children in the Unitesd States within a legal and historical context. The report should be of interest to practitioners, researchers, and scholars whose work touches on im ...