Links
National Immigrant Justice Center
The National Immigrant Justice Center, a program of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights, provides direct legal services to and advocates for low-income and impoverished immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The Center's Children's Project employs a Managing Attorney, Staff Attorney and Paralegal who recruit, train and mentor pro bono attorneys who represent unaccompanied children.
www.immigrantjustice.org
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.
www.unhcr.org
National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children
The National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children coordinates pro bono legal services for unaccompanied children released from detention in the United States.
www.refugees.org
American Bar Association Commission on Immigration
The Commission directs American Bar Association efforts to ensure fair and unbiased treatment, and full due process rights, for immigrants and refugees within the United States.
www.abanet.org/publicserv/immigration
Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies
Jacqueline Bhabha has released a report on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated immigrant and refugee children titled "Seeking Asylum Alone."
www.humanrights.harvard.edu/conference/
Seeking_Asylum_Alone_US_Report.pdf
asylumlaw.org
Free website run by an international consortium of agencies that help asylum seekers in Australia, Canada, the United States, and several countries in Europe.
www.asylumlaw.org
Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children
The Women's Commission is an expert resource and advocacy organization that monitors the care and protection of refugee women and children. It speaks out on issues of concern to refugee and displaced women, children and adolescents, who have a critical perspective in bringing about change but often do not have access to governments and policy makers.
www.womenscommission.org
National Immigration Forum
The National Immigration Forum advocates and builds support for public policies that welcome immigrants and refugees and are fair and supportive to newcomers in the United States.
www.immigrationforum.org
Vera Institute of Justice
The Vera Institute of Justice works closely with leaders in government and civil society to improve the services people rely on for safety and justice. The Vera Institute’s Unaccompanied Children Project is working to build organizational capacity to provide pro bono legal services in eight sites around the country.
www.vera.org
Resources
ABA Standards for the Custody, Placement and Care
Legal Representation and Adjudication of Unaccompanied Alien Children in the United States
www.abanet.org/publicserv/immigration/home.html
Convention on the Rights of the Child
www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
UNHCR Guidelines on Policies and Procedures in Dealing with Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum
www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.pdf?tbl=PUBL&id=3d4f91cf4
www.unhcr.org
UNHCR Guidelines on Formal Determination of the Best Interests of the Child
UNHCR Guidelines on Formal Determination of the Best Interests of the Child
1951 Geneva Refugee Convention
1951 Geneva Refugee Convention
TOP
Books/Articles
Enrique's Journey; The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother, by Sonia Nazario
Enrique's Journey
La Travesia de Enrique
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, by Anne Fadiman
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
The Devil's Highway: A True Story, by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Devil's Highway : A True Story
By the Lake of Sleeping Children, by Luis Alberto Urrea
By the Lake of Sleeping Children
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat
Small Island: A Novel, by Andrea Levy
When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka
The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Smugglers Due, by Alex Kotlowitz, New York Times Magazine
June 11, 2006Brother, I'm Dying, by Edwidge Danticat
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Tortilla Curtain, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder
Atlas of Unknowns, by Tania James
Movies
Born Into Brothels
Two documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes who work the city's notorious red light district.
Born into Brothels (2003)
Maria Full of Grace
A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.
Maria Full of Grace (2003)
Hotel Rwanda
Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.
Hotel Rwanda (2005)
The Beauty Academy of Kabul
A documentary following American women (some of whom emigrated from Afghanistan in the early 1980s) who return to the capital city of Kabul to open an American-style school for beauticians. Some of their students are women who maintained "underground" beauty
salons while the city was under strict Taliban control. Excerpt taken from IMDB.com
The Beauty Academy of Kabul (2004)
God Grew Tired of Us
In 1987, Sudan's Muslim government pronounced
death to all males in the Christian south: 27,000 boys fled to Ethiopia
on foot. In 1991, they were forced to flee to Kenya; 12,000 survived
to live in a U.N. camp in Kakuma. Archival footage documents the
1,000 mile flight; we see life in the camp. Excerpt taken from IMDB.com.
God
Grew Tired of Us (2006)
In America
An aspiring Irish actor and his family illegally immigrate in the United States with the dreams of the father breaking into the New York City theatrical scene. Once they arrive in the
big city, they move into a flop house and try to make it truly their home. While they struggle to fit in their new country, the family finds new friends like the reclusive neighbor, Mateo, who provides
help in the most unexpected ways in America. Excerpt taken from IMDB.com.
In
America (2002)
Lost Embrace (El Abrazo Partido)
This is Ariel's world: the small, slightly
seedy shopping center in downtown Buenos Aires, where the Italian
shopkeepers scream all day, the Koreans sell feng-shui and old Osvaldo
sells nothing. Where Ariel's mother runs a lingerie shop and his
brother deals in import-export. It's a comfortable little world,
in spite of an undercurrent of malaise and uncertainty. Many young
people are searching for their immigrant roots to obtain a coveted
foreign passport, the key to a world full of promise. Ariel, however,
wants more than a passport from Poland, where his grandparents fled
to escape the Holocaust. Excerpt taken from IMDB.com.
Lost
Embrace (El Abrazo Partido) (2004)
Made in LA
Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer. In intimate verité style,
Made in L.A. reveals the impact of the struggle on each woman's life
as they are gradually transformed by the experience. Excerpt taken from IMDB.com.
Made in L.A. (2007)
The Visitor
A widowed college professor travels to New
York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple, who turn
out to be illegal immigrants, living in his apartment. Excerpt
taken from IMDB.com.
The
Visitor (2008)
Human Commodity
After being orphaned in Morocco, Fanny Clonch was trapped in households where she was nothing more than a commodity. The story of her grandmother, who as a child had been sold into slavery and eventually escaped, inspired Fanny to find a way out.
Reported and co-produced by Alex Kotlowitz and edited and co-produced by Amy Dorn. [12:46 min.]
Exodus of One, by Alex Kotlowitz for
This American Life
Just three years old, Georgia was caught by immigration officials when a Milwaukee woman brought her into the country illegally from Jamaica. She ended up at a residential shelter in Chicago. No one knew much about Georgia—where she was from in Jamaica, who her parents were, or how she ended up with this woman from Milwaukee. [42 min.]
(Part 1)
(Part 2)
Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights
at the University of Chicago
6020 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
773 702-9560
info@TheYoungCenter.org
© 2006 Immigrant Child Advocacy Project.
All rights reserved.
Web design:
Axie Breen and Brian Robinson
Home page main photo by Tony Armour.
All others by Kathy Richland Pick.