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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:34 pm
Time: 8:34 pm
Results for unaccompanied migrant children
3 results foundAuthor: Sinchetto, Francesco Title: Unaccompanied and Separated Children along Italy's Northern Borders Summary: Unaccompanied and separated foreign minors have been arriving in Italy for several years. The total number of minors intercepted and registered with Italian authorities over the past six years is 62,672. Since 2011 the number of UASC (Unaccompanied And Separated Children) has risen constantly from year to year, up until a slight fall recorded in the first seven months of 2017 (compared with arrivals in the same period of 2016), with the arrival of 12,656 unaccompanied minors, making up 13% of the arriving migrant population over the past year. Among registered UASC, one in four left reception facilities, and became untraceable3. Such a high dropout rate from centres on the part of minors is chiefly due to the desire to go directly to other States in the European Union. This is partly due to the dysfunctions of Italy's reception system and to the time needed to start and complete the procedures for family reunification and the granting of international protection. In view of the "irregular" nature of these people's status, not in the sense of unlawful presence in the country but rather that of straying from a planned course, characterising the state of migrants in transit, who appear to form a sort of "underground people", these migrants, including minors, do not receive any sort of temporary reception or formal support. This category, present en masse in reality, is not legally contemplated or recognised as such. Thus this group is not governed by any particular rules, and does not receive any protection, including services meeting primary needs. In such a setting, there is a clear use, and need, for activities in support of emergency measures adopted by institutions, humanitarian organisations and civil society. Since 2011 Intersos has been operating a night-time reception centre in Rome called A28 for foreign minors in transit. In five years the centre has provided a safe shelter for more than 4,000 unaccompanied foreign minors in transit in Italy. In 2016 the A28 Centre hosted 1,112 unaccompanied minors from Eritrea, one third of all those arriving in Italy in the same year. Working closely with the centre is the Intersos Street Unit service, created in November 2016 in partnership with Unicef, in order to monitor the territory, promote the service and single out the most vulnerable cases. Following on from this initial project, over the past two years Intersos has broadened its action in the sphere of reception and assistance for unaccompanied foreign minors transiting in Italy or dropping out of official reception channels. In March 2017, in collaboration with Unicef, initiatives were also undertaken in Como and Ventimiglia, in light of the increase in migrant flows in the respective border areas, with the consequent intensification of border checks on the part of neighbouring States and a growing number of "rejected" people in Italy, who are forced to face a stalemate situation with very few prospects. The Como and Ventimiglia projects intend to facilitating the take into care of intercepted unaccompanied foreign minors, 1,070 in Como and 1,418 in Ventimiglia, through the providing of information, support and legal aid. Thanks to collaboration with local organisations and reference institutions, ad hoc pathways for UASC are activated, where possible, starting with access to the international protection application procedure, and including admission to secondstage reception facilities. In Ventimiglia furthermore, a mobile clinic has been operational since April 2017, offering basic medical care to persons outside the reception centres. The most relevant cases in terms of the seriousness of violations committed or complexity of individual cases have been taken up in collaboration with the Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull'Immigrazione (Association for Legal Studies on Immigration). As regards family reunification procedures, collaborative ties have been forged with the Safe Passage initiative. Thanks to the support of the Open Society Foundation, the conditions of unaccompanied foreign minors have been monitored along Italy's northern borders, from August to October 2017. This report is the result of this monitoring activity. The research was conducted in connection with the above-described actions, making use of the material gathered during these activities, consisting mainly of direct interviews with minors in Rome, Como and Ventimiglia and information procured by constant dialogue with institutions and the actors of civil society operating in the sector. In localities where an Intersos team is not present on a permanent basis, the research was conducted by means of monitoring visits, interviews with migrants, meetings with the authorities responsible for managing the migratory phenomenon, and counting on permanent cooperation with local associations. Details: Rome: Intersos, 2017. 72p. Source: Internet Resource: July 26, 2018 at: https://www.intersos.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UASC-along-Italys-northern-borders.compressed.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Italy URL: https://www.intersos.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UASC-along-Italys-northern-borders.compressed.pdf Shelf Number: 150923 Keywords: Child MigrantsIllegal MigrantsImmigrationMigrantsUnaccompanied ChildrenUnaccompanied Migrant Children |
Author: UNICEF Title: Uprooted in Central America and Mexico: Migrant and refugee children face a vicious cycle of hardship and danger Summary: Every day, children and families from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico leave their homes and communities to set off on the perilous journey northward. Driven by the threat of violence and desperation of poverty, they risk their lives for the promise of a better future. Along the way they face the constant threat of exploitation or detention - a threat that continues if they make it across the border. And if they do return home, they often find their circumstances worse than when their journey began. Why are families from northern Central America and Mexico migrating northward? The decision to leave is often shaped by multiple factors. For many families, migration to Mexico and the United States is the only path they can imagine to escape the torment of extreme poverty. Others are driven by the pervasive threat of violence in their countries, lack of educational opportunities for children, and a desire to reunite with family members who have already migrated. What is the migration journey like? Without the means to access safe and regular migration pathways, many of the region's poorest and most disadvantaged families take dangerous informal routes. Unaccompanied children and women are at the greatest risk - they are easy prey to traffickers, criminals, gangs, security forces and others who abuse, exploit or even kill them. Children may be apprehended in transit or upon reaching their destinations, only to be separated from their families, detained and returned to their countries of origin. What happens when they are sent back? For migrant children and families, reintegrating safely back into their communities is more complicated than simply being sent home. Families frequently find themselves in debt, unable to earn back the money they spent to finance the journey. Children endure the immense psychological stress of being separated, detained and deported to a country and socioeconomic circumstances that are entirely new to them. They are often stigmatized by their communities and seen as failures, or, in the case of some teenage girls, viewed as 'tainted'. And the threat of violence persists. In many cases, the fact that families have been in the United States can make them a target for local gangs. Details: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2018. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Child Alert: Accessed November 15, 2018 at: https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Child_Alert_2018_Central_America_and_Mexico.pdf Year: 2018 Country: Central America URL: https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Child_Alert_2018_Central_America_and_Mexico.pdf Shelf Number: 153473 Keywords: Immigrant Detention Migrant Children Refugee Children Unaccompanied Migrant Children |
Author: Peck, Sarah Herman Title: The "Flores Settlement" and Alien Families Apprehended at the U.S. Border: Frequently Asked Questions Summary: Reports of alien minors being separated from their parents at the U.S. border have raised questions about the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) authority to detain alien families together pending the aliens' removal proceedings, which may include consideration of claims for asylum and other forms of relief from removal. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes-and in some case requires-DHS to detain aliens pending removal proceedings. However, neither the INA nor other federal laws specifically address when or whether alien family members must be detained together. DHS's options regarding the detention or release of alien families are significantly restricted by a binding settlement agreement from a case in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California now called Flores v. Sessions. The "Flores Settlement" establishes a policy favoring the release of alien minors, including accompanied alien minors, and requires that those alien minors who are not released from government custody be transferred within a brief period to non-secure, state-licensed facilities. DHS indicates that few such facilities exist that can house adults and children together. Accordingly, under the Flores Settlement and current circumstances, DHS asserts that it generally cannot detain alien children and their parents together for more than brief periods. Following an executive order President Trump issued that addressed alien family separation, the Department of Justice filed a motion to modify the Flores Settlement to allow for the detention of alien families in unlicensed facilities for longer periods. The district court overseeing the settlement rejected that motion, much as it has rejected similar motions to modify the settlement filed by the government in recent years. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the earlier rulings but has not yet reviewed the most recent ruling.) In its most recent motion, the government has argued, among other things, that a preliminary injunction entered in a separate litigation, Ms. L v. ICE, which generally requires the government to reunite separated alien families and refrain from separating families going forward, supports a modification of the Flores Settlement to allow indefinite detention of alien minors alongside their parents. On a separate track, DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have announced that they intend to seek termination of the Flores Settlement through the promulgation of new regulations that, according to the agencies, would adopt the substantive terms of the agreement with certain modifications. Significantly, the proposed regulations would allow DHS to detain families together until immigration proceedings were completed by creating an alternative federal licensing scheme for family residential centers. That federal scheme would impose facility standards that purport to mimic the standards set forth in the Flores Settlement, which calls for the exclusive use of state-licensed facilities for the detention of minors. A legal dispute seems likely to arise over whether the proposed regulations adequately implement the Flores Settlement, including whether the regulations are consistent with the agreement's general policy favoring the release of minors from immigration custody. Congress, for its part, could largely override the Flores Settlement legislatively, although constitutional considerations relating to the rights of aliens in immigration custody may inform the permissible scope and effect of such legislation. Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: R45297: Accessed March 7, 2019 at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R45297.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R45297.pdf Shelf Number: 154839 Keywords: Detained Children Flores Settlement Immigrant Detention Immigration EnforcementImmigration Policy Migrant Children Unaccompanied Migrant Children |