One Unaccompanied Minor's Journey to the US Sparks Hope in California's Pilot Program

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n Aug. 14, “A.” walked onto his Northern California high school campus as a senior. The 18-year-old, like most of his classmates, has come a long way since he first set foot on this campus as a freshman three years ago, though few have experienced the transformation that he has. A. (whose first name and exact location are being withheld to protect his identity), went from speaking only Spanish to performing skits on stage in English, from struggling to find his classes to helping other newcomers find theirs, and from undocumented and afraid of deportation to documented and eager to share his story.

A.’s childhood in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was relatively normal: a close-knit family and a passion for soccer. That was until gangs started hovering near his school. After witnessing gang violence himself, he no longer felt safe walking to and from class. He and his parents began having heart-wrenching conversations, wondering aloud if he’d be better off living with extended family in the United States. Soon, the decision was made. A. would be heading north with a small group of migrants on the long journey through Guatemala and Mexico.

“They just [told] me, ‘You have to go with these people,’” A. said, “and that was all.” He was just 14 years old.

After a 23-day journey on foot, A. and his group arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. They stood on the banks of the Rio Grande, and A. could see border patrol agents on the other side. There were drones flying overhead and lights scanning the shore. A. didn’t know how to swim, so he was given an inner tube to help him cross. When he landed on U.S. soil, Border Patrol agents apprehended him and the other members of the group.

A. was held by federal officials — first U.S. Customs and Border Protection and then the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — for two-and-a-half months before being released to the care of his aunt in Utah. He was relieved to finally be with family again, ready to tackle the next steps in establishing his new life in the United States.

When he was released, he was given a notice to appear in immigration court three weeks later. A. knew this court date was important, and he would need his aunt’s help to get him there. But when the day approached, his aunt wouldn’t take him. She was undocumented herself and afraid of what might happen if she showed up to immigration court. A. missed his court date, and not long after, his family decided he should live, instead, with an aunt in California, one with more financial resources to care for him.

On the day of his 15th birthday, A. arrived in Northern California. He settled in quickly with his aunt and her younger children and, within weeks, was starting his first day of high school.

“I had nobody to translate for me,” A. said. “And it was so hard for me to understand what the teachers were saying and how the rules were.”

But soon, he received devastating news. A letter had arrived for him at his aunt’s house in Utah stating that, as a result of his failure to appear in court, the judge had issued a removal order for him.

After finding nothing but dead ends with the list of legal resources provided to him by ORR, A. gave up hope. He continued going to school and trying his best, but he kept his story to himself.

“I didn’t want to share my story because I was afraid that you never know what kind of people you’re going to meet with and if they were going to do something against you,” he recalled.

A year passed this way, with A. keeping his legal status to himself, in agony over his future.

Children at the border

Between October 2020 and September 2021, the Office of Refugee Resettlement reported that 107,646 unaccompanied children were released to sponsors nationwide, a massive increase from the previous year in which ORR released only 16,837 minors.

Despite landing in all 50 states, a few states routinely place the most, with Texas, Florida, and California each taking in more than 10,000 children in the past year. Most minors in ORR care, like A., have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. After being apprehended by immigration authorities, they are transferred to the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for housing and sheltering them while confirming their placement with a sponsor. Most youth sponsors are family members, and it can take weeks or months for ORR to confirm the safety and viability of that home.

But once the minor is relocated there, contact with ORR ends. Minors are typically given a notice to appear in court and a list of legal resources, as happened with A., but, as Kristina McKibben-Sias of Community Justice Alliance said, this system, which appears much like foster care, is distinctly different.

“This is just kind of uncharted territory where they’re left to navigate all of their basic needs on their own,” she said.

These basic needs often include things like housing support, healthcare, mental health services, and help accessing education, all on top of the need for trauma-informed legal representation. Immigration attorneys like McKibben say these needs go hand-in-hand as they all affect a child’s ability to resettle comfortably and safely in a new place.

California’s new program for immigrant youth

In response to the record-breaking number of unaccompanied minors coming to California, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and the California Department of Social Services in 2022 piloted a new program to provide wraparound services to immigrant youth across the state. The Children’s Holistic Immigration Representation Project, or CHIRP, provided funding to 16 organizations, allowing them to integrate social services alongside legal aid. They could now provide their youth clients with an attorney and a case manager or social worker who would collaborate on each case.

CHIRP was the first program of its kind in the country, and advocates were hopeful it would provide a model to other states. They also hoped it would become permanent. The two-year term of the pilot would pose challenges. First, organizations would post job positions, hire new employees, and integrate them into their teams. Some organizations struggled at first to find qualified employees willing to take on the uncertainty of working under a pilot program. What kind of job security could they expect when their funding might run out in a matter of months? And second, immigration courts are complicated and notoriously backlogged, meaning the cases these organizations would be taking on would surely take more than two years to conclude. What would happen after two years if the funding wasn’t renewed?

Still, with all the uncertainty of a new program, advocates and the organizations that received funding were thrilled with the work they could do. In the two years since the program began, more than 600 children received services across 30 counties.

From hopeless to hope restored

When A.’s sophomore year began, he tried to sign up for his school’s soccer team, only to find that he needed to provide his health insurance information for the required physical. A. didn’t have health insurance (despite being eligible for Medi-Cal under a 2016 law allowing for all children in California to qualify regardless of immigration status), and he needed help figuring out what to do.

A. turned to his English teacher, Dr. J, who he had developed a close and trusted relationship with over the past year. Learning of his status, Dr. J — whose full name is being withheld to protect A.’s identity — assured him that together, they would find a solution.

“I had no hopes,” A. said, “and she was the one who told me that we were not going to give up.”

She began calling legal aid organizations across the state, drawing on her two decades of teaching experience to connect with educators who had more experience working with newcomer youth.

“Although their dockets are completely full, [they] took their time to meet with me and educate me and then connect me eventually with the Community Justice Alliance,” Dr. J. recalled. After hearing A.’s story, CJA agreed to take his case.

Within weeks, their social services team was able to help him get physical and mental health appointments as the legal team assembled his case. They argued his eligibility for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status — and won. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status is an important tool for unaccompanied youth like A. — and one that’s nearly impossible to get without an attorney. It puts status holders on a pathway to permanent residency and, eventually, the ability to apply for citizenship.

For A., this represented a new start, the ability to be himself openly and to share his story with anyone who would listen. He no longer had to live in fear of deportation.

“I don’t feel embarrassed [about] my past. I feel proud [of] where I’m coming from and everything I’ve done. And I was able to tell my story to my friends. It was definitely a big change for me.”

And Dr. J saw her once-silent student blossom. He joined drama and performed skits on stage and used his new confidence to speak to California lawmakers about the importance of CHIRP. The program had quickly and radically transformed his life, and he wanted the same for the thousands of other children who continue to come to California alone each year.

But in May of this year, Newsom announced in his budget revision that funding for CHIRP would not be extended beyond its initial two-year timeline, giving organizations until Aug. 31 to find a solution.

With the program on the chopping block, Community Justice Alliance was scrambling. But just days before the deadline, organizers received the news that the funding would be extended another 10 months. The extension comes as a huge relief, but it won’t last long. Advocates still hope California will find a permanent place in its budget for the $17.8 million program and argue that this relatively modest price tag is easily justified by the vulnerability of those it helps.

A. continues his own advocacy while he begins his senior year of high school. He thinks frequently about what he’d like to do after graduation, and his experience with CHIRP and the Community Justice Alliance has made his dream clear: “I think I would like to be a social worker,” he said.