Youth/Young Adults

Education as an Opportunity for Integration: Assessing Colombia, Peru, and Chile’s Educational Responses to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis

With over 5 million Venezuelans fleeing their home country, Latin America is facing the largest migration crisis in its history. Colombia, Peru, and Chile host the largest numbers of Venezuelan migrants in the region. Each country has responded differently to the crisis in terms of the provision of education. Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter the primary, secondary, and higher education systems encounter a variety of barriers, from struggles with documentation to limited availability of spaces in schools to cultural barriers and xenophobia.

Child Maltreatment & Child Migration: Abuse Disclosures by Central American and Mexican Unaccompanied Migrant Children

While gang violence, community violence, and domestic violence have been recognized as contributing factors to Central American migration, less is known about the intersection between child maltreatment and migration. This article uses secondary data from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees interviews with unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico to examine child maltreatment. It provides information on the abused children, their abusers, and the questions that led to their disclosure of maltreatment. It finds that girls reported maltreatment at higher rates than boys; only girls in this sample reported sexual abuse and intimate partner violence; and boys experienced physical abuse more than any other form of maltreatment. Overall, girls experienced all forms of abuse at higher rates than boys. Fewer than half of this sample described maltreatment as an explicit reason for migration, even those who viewed it as a type of suffering, harm, or danger. In addition, some disclosures suggest that childhood transitions, such as in housing, schooling, or work status, warrant further inquiry as a potential consequence of or contributor to maltreatment.

The article recommends that professionals engaged with migrant children in social services, legal services, or migration protection and status adjudications should inquire about maltreatment, recognizing that children may reveal abuse in complex and indirect ways. Protection risks within the home or family environment may provide the grounds for US legal immigration protections, such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status or asylum. Practitioners working with unaccompanied migrant children should use varied approaches to inquire about home country maltreatment experiences. Maltreatment may be part of the context of child migration, whether or not it is explicitly mentioned by children as a reason for migration.

CMSOnAir | Daniela Alulema on the Contributions of DACA Recipients

As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to terminate the DACA program, CMS released a paper offering detailed estimates about DACA recipients, their economic contributions, and their deep ties to US communities. The paper, which also features testimonies of several DACA recipients, was subsequently published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). In this episode, Daniela Alulema — who is author of the JMHS paper, CMS’s Director of Programs, and herself a DACA recipient — describes the paper’s findings, shares the stories of the DACA recipients, and outlines potential policy directions for the DACA program.

Dominican University Is a Leader in Educating Immigrant Students

Dominican University, a private Catholic university located in River Forest, Illinois, has been operating since 1901 with an eye toward educating poor and marginalized students, including immigrant students, in the Midwest. Founded by the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters in Wisconsin and later moved to Illinois, the school has an enrollment of about 3,000 students—a small college—but its influence reaches far beyond its campus 10 miles west of downtown Chicago.

CMSOnAir | Leading a Sanctuary Campus through Multiple Pandemics

Dominican University is unique among Catholic colleges for its commitment to immigrants. About 10 percent of the students at Dominican University are undocumented or have temporary legal status, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. This episode features an interview with Donna Carroll, president of Dominican University. She reflects on the challenges facing undocumented college students, including: lack of federal financial aid funding, the difficulty of career planning, and integrating into campus life. She also talks about the leadership of undocumented and “DACAmented” students and why the university adopted a Sanctuary Campus Covenant in 2017. Carroll describes the university’s efforts to support immigrant students during the “triple pandemics” of COVID-19, racism, and economic injustice — all of which have been exacerbated by restrictionist immigration policies.

CMS Estimates on DACA Recipients by Catholic Archdiocese and Diocese

This paper provides estimates on beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) by Roman Catholic archdiocese and diocese (“arch/diocese”) in order to assist Catholic institutions, legal service providers, pastoral workers and others in their work with DACA recipients. In addition, the paper summarizes past estimates by the Center for Migration Studies about DACA recipients, which highlight their ties and contributions to the United States. It also offers resources for Catholic institutions, educators, and professionals that serve this group.

The Supreme Court Rules Against the Trump Administration in DACA Case

We are pleased that the Supreme Court reversed the termination of DACA and found that the way it was done was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Shifting Boundaries: Immigrant Youth Negotiating National, State, and Small-Town Politics

Paul N. McDaniel of Kennesaw State University reviews Shifting Boundaries: Immigrant Youth Negotiating National, State, and Small-Town Politics by Alexis Silver. In this book, Silver examines the experiences of immigrant youth growing up in a small town in North Carolina—a state...

DACA Recipients are Essential Workers and Part of the Front-line Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, as Supreme Court Decision Looms

Recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program have long contributed to the US labor force, economy, and communities, and several are now on the front lines combating the outbreak of COVID-19 and working to prevent the spread of the virus and to support those affected by it. This post provides estimates of the numbers of DACA recipients working in essential industries.

Not for Adults Only: Toward a Child’s Lens in Migration Policies in Asia

This is the first of three JMHS papers that will be released this month on implementation of different aspects of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The papers have been produced by three think-tanks – the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) in Manila, covering the Asia-Pacific region, the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) in Cape Town, and the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) – that belong to the global network of Scalabrini Migration Study Centers (SMSC). This paper by SMC provides an overview of the challenges faced by children as migration actors. It considers the policy responses and programs that select countries in East, South, and Southeast Asia have developed to address children’s experiences and concerns in the context of the GCM and GCR. Many Asian countries have endorsed the Compacts, which set forth objectives, commitments, and actions informed by the principle of promoting the best interests of the child. They also call for states to promote universal birth registration, to enhance access to education, health and social services regardless of legal status, and to create inclusive and socially cohesive societies. Most countries in Asia have yet to meet these standards. Endorsing the two Compacts, however, was a first step. The good practices that have been implemented in a number of Asian countries, the paper argues, provide a template for how to translate the Compacts’ objectives into action and how to ensure that the full protection and best interests of migrant children, the left-behind children of migrant workers, and those who are part of multicultural families remain a priority.