unaccompanied minors

A school campus with small blue buildings

Newcomer students face daunting obstacles to graduate. This California high school makes it possible.

Global Nation Education

Often, migrant teens have to work to pay for their own rent or help with family expenses.  High school can be overwhelming. Rusdale High School, just for immigrant students 16 or older, accommodates their needs to help them achieve.

A teacher speaks in front of the classroom.

In this California classroom, students teach each other their home languages — and learn acceptance

Yusra, played by Rhianna Merralls, struggles to fall asleep in the play, "Wherever I Lay My Head," performed in London City Hall.

Chronic insomnia plagues young migrants long after they reach their destination

Young boy entering building from sidewalk

‘They didn’t explore the world,’ says physician who cared for toddlers separated from their parents at the border

Immigration
Immigrants sit in a cell for incoming ICE detainees at the Adelanto immigration detention center in Adelanto, California, April 13, 2017.

ICE isn’t following its own handbook on how to deport kids

Immigration
Homeless migrant teenagers meet twice a week in this public park in northern Paris for a hot meal brought by volunteers.

Unaccompanied minors in Paris face X-ray tests and other Kafkaesque hurdles to proving their age

Justice

When teenage migrants reach France and apply for asylum as unaccompanied minors, they often find that proving they’re under 18 is yet another challenge on their journey. Some end up living on the streets while trying to confirm their age.

Monica Ruiz and her foster son Bartolo

It took a health emergency for this Guatemalan boy, who crossed the border alone, to see a US judge

Global Politics

Bartolo was a minor and even though the US government had placed him with his cousin when he entered the country, his cousin wasn’t actually his legal custodian. No one was.

A train in a green field with someone standing on the top of a car

Advocates suggest another option for US-bound Central Americans: Stay and work in Mexico

Conflict

Mexico is becoming a destination for Central American migrants who apply for “humanitarian” visas to avoid deportation and secure employment. But the promise of higher-paid work in the US remains a powerful lure.

Unaccompanied Minors

Getting an education is the latest battle for migrant children who crossed US border alone last summer

Education

On Long Island, it’s been a rocky start for some young Central Americans, who were placed into a “transition” school that some observers find subpar.