by Morgan Pardue-Kim, Kerri Evans, Zayna Lyon, and Linda-Jeanne M. Mack

Online ahead of print. This article will appear in Children’s Voice, Volume 34, Number 2.

Authors’ note: Policies impacting children who are unaccompanied immigrants are rapidly changing. These policy decisions impact not only these youth, but also the people and organizations that serve them. The policy information in our article is up to date at the time of writing but may, and will likely, change; for example, after writing our article, the current administration issued a nearly complete termination of certain services and legal aid for children who are unaccompanied — which a judge temporarily blocked on 4/1/25. Now, perhaps more than ever, knowledge of and advocacy for these youth is needed. We encourage all readers to stay current on rapidly changing policies and the consequences for children who are unaccompanied immigrants.

The unique needs of children who are unaccompanied immigrants are frequently unknown to social workers. A lack of knowledge about these youth in our profession is concerning given the current administration’s negative stance on immigration (Dreier & Trevizo, 2025) and specific targeting of this population (Cassler, 2025)—all within the context of children who are unaccompanied encompassing a substantial part of the U.S. child welfare system (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2024a). This article summarizes the child welfare system (CWS) that serves youth who are unaccompanied immigrants, describes how their needs differ from other children in the CWS, and concludes with recommendations for social workers.

Children who are Unaccompanied—and the Child Welfare System that Serves Them
The legal definition of a child/youth who is an unaccompanied immigrant—referred to as “unaccompanied alien child,” or UC, in many policies—is someone who: (a)  arrives in the United States without a parent or legal guardian; (b) is under 18 years old; and (c)  does not have lawful immigration status in the United States (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2024b). Youth who are unaccompanied immigrants and are apprehended enter into the custody of a federal CWS (inclusive of shelter care during detention periods, foster care, and community-based services) operating via The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), an Office of the Administration for Children & Families. ORR oversees services for unaccompanied immigrant children until they are reunified with family, or until they turn 18 years old when they are transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. Flores v. Reno (1997) established that youth who are unaccompanied have the legal right to care that is consistent with local child welfare laws.

While children and youth who are unaccompanied are in CWS, ORR contracts with state- and county-licensed child welfare programs to provide services. Because children who are unaccompanied arrive in the United States without a caregiver, they receive distinct services and have unique needs from children in the child welfare system who are immigrants and have lived with their parents in the United States.

Unique Needs of Children who are Unaccompanied Immigrants
Youth who are unaccompanied immigrants may have:

  • Cross-national family separation. Some do not have a parent or guardian in the United States, while others are reunified after years apart. This lack of local social support and the grief of family separation has negative impacts on mental health and functioning (Lu et al., 2020). Family separation, however, does not mean these youth do not have loved ones or social support (Báez et al., 2024).
  • Layered experiences of trauma from their home country conditions, migration journey, family separation, and human rights violations once in the United States (Castañeda, et al., 2021).
  • Varied immigration statuses and complicated legal needs can be a great source of stress (Crea et al., 2018). Immigration status has concrete consequences, such as discrimination in the community/school (Báez et al., 2024) and being differentially eligible for government benefits (Samari et al., 2021). Their immigration status can impact child welfare options.
  • Varying English language skills and cultural differences.
  • Intersecting experiences of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, immigration status, and/or language abilities (Báez et al., 2024).
  • Risk of labor exploitation due to competing demands to earn an income, lack of knowledge of labor laws, and immigration status (Canizales, 2021; see also Kids in Need of Defense, 2025).
  • Educational challenges stemming from limited formal education (Szlyk et al., 2020) and entering school systems that are often unprepared to meet their previously listed needs (Evans et al., 2022).

Recommendations for Social Workers
To address the specific needs listed above, we recommend the following:

  1. Provide additional training for caseworkers, program administrators, foster families, independent living specialists, and others supporting youth in the CWS on the unique needs of unaccompanied immigrant youth. Training should ensure that workers understand culturally relevant aspects of case planning, including both physical and emotional safety and the role of cultural integration on well-being and mental health (Crea et al., 2021).
  2. Adapt service provision to include the immigrant experience. Trauma-informed services need to be provided in a language that is easily understood by the youth, and with consideration of their cultural context, personal agency, and risks based on the current sociopolitical environment. The legal needs of children who are unaccompanied immigrants should be understood by the youth and case manager and taken into consideration when discussing permanency planning and service referrals (Crea et al., 2021).
  3. Foster family connections. The search for family members in the United States should be ongoing because new loved ones could arrive over time (Evans et al., 2018). We encourage providers to use a broad definition of kin when searching for kinship family options. When the youth’s family is not present in person, long-distance connections should be fostered. Programs can additionally nurture the development of local support (e.g., community mentors, social groups).
  4. Engage in program practices that center the lived experiences of children who are unaccompanied immigrants (Schmidt, 2018). Programs can create advisory councils where youth have a voice in programming and improvement efforts and collaborate on participatory research. Additionally, we can prioritize hiring those with lived experience in professional positions.
  5. Support policies that address the needs of children and youth who are unaccompanied immigrants, reduce their systematic marginalization, and uphold their human rights (Stewart, 2014; Chang-Muy and Congress, 2015). Social workers should support policies that increase access to legal representation and services, and repeal legislation that criminalizes human service support for these children and youth and forces cooperation with immigration enforcement. Advocacy is critical now more than ever.

Resources for Education and Action
We acknowledge that the additional staff time and funding required to implement these strategies may be challenging. To address these barriers, program partnerships with academics and local organizations could assist with many of our recommendations (Evans et al., 2022; Lovato & Finno-Velasquez, 2024). We also call for funders to continue providing and expanding financial resources for implementation.

Online Resources

General manuals for practitioners:

Legal assistance:

Starting lived experience advisory councils:

Training and technical assistance:

  • Hispanic/Latino Behavioral Health Center of Excellence. (n.d.). Training and Technical Assistance on Culturally-Adapted and Community-Driven Practices. https://hispaniclatinobehavioralhealth.org/focus-areas/training-and-technical-assistance/
  • U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. (n.d.). Training and Technical Assistance for Providers and Community Members. https://ucresourcecenter.org/providers-training-technical-assistance/

For updates on policies impacting children who are unaccompanied, connect with your local immigrant rights organization and/or subscribe to national newsletters (e.g., the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare, the Migration Policy Institute). For a complete database of all immigration policy changes, see https://immpolicytracking.org/.

 

Morgan Pardue-Kim, MSW, is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Social Work. She has been in the field of social work since 2007, including being a case manager on the US/Mexico border and working with the child welfare system. After her Peace Corps service in Latin America, she interned at Global Refuge during her MSW program where she investigated outcomes for former unaccompanied refugee minors. Her work focuses on how to best support parents who had difficult childhoods, and emphasizes lived experiences and participatory methods. Morgan is currently conducting her dissertation, “Unaccompanied Refugee Minors’ Experiences as Parents: A Constructivist Grounded Theory and Participatory Approach.”

Kerri Evans, PhD, LCSW, has social work experience in clinical and macro roles including case management for unaccompanied immigrant children (UC), adoption home studies, social skills groups, developing home study protocols for child welfare workers across the globe, and policy work on access to education for immigrant youth. As a Program Manager administering federal foster care serving unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children, she was responsible for monitoring, staff training, and capacity development. Her research focuses on unaccompanied immigrant children and refugees using qualitative and quantitative methods, yielding 34 journal articles, book chapters, podcasts, etc. Using community partnerships, she works to answer service providers’ questions to improve service delivery and make policy recommendations.

Zayna Lyon, MSW, is a PhD student in Public Policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. Zayna brings over a decade of experience in social work and policy advocacy to her research. Her work focuses on push and pull factors of migration for undocumented immigrants and unaccompanied children, immigrant and refugee integration outcomes, and the effects of immigration policy on child welfare outcomes for unaccompanied children and undocumented immigrant families.

Linda-Jeanne M. Mack, LICSW, is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Social Work. Prior to becoming a doctoral student, Ms. Mack worked in the child welfare system for over a decade in Massachusetts. She was also a community mental health therapist for individuals and families impacted by family separation and adoption. She consults for agencies, leads trainings for mental health providers and child welfare workers, and is active in policy and legislative change at the state and federal levels. Her research interests include the impact of social and child welfare policies and implementation on the experiences of both decision-makers and impacted families, preventing out-of-home placements, terminations of parental rights, and reuniting families.

  

References
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Canizales, Stephanie L. (2023). Work primacy and the social incorporation of unaccompanied, undocumented Latinx youth in the United States. Social Forces, 1001(3).

Castañeda, E., Jenks, D., Chaikof, J., Cione, C., Felton, S., Goris, I., Buck, L., & Hershberg, E. (2021). Symptoms of PTSD and depression among Central American immigrant youth. Trauma Care, 1(2), 99-118. https://doi.org/10.3390/traumacare1020010

Chang-Muy, F., & Congress, E.P. (2015). Social work with immigrants and refugees: Legal issues, clinical skills, and advocacy. Springer.

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Dreier, H., & Trevizo, P. (2025, February 6). Trump’s day one executive orders revived immigration policies from his last four years in office and went beyond. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-immigration-executive-orders

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