Helping Child Refugees

October 22, 2005

Each year, some 6,000 to 7,000 children from foreign countries enter the United States without any parents or guardians to look after them, many seeking protection from repressive regimes, exploitation, abusive family situations or other traumatic circumstances. A bipartisan bill now percolating in the Senate would help improve the way these vulnerable children are treated while in federal custody.

The bill, called the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act, would not alter current immigration standards or expand rights to asylum. The measure simply seeks to fill a critical administrative gap, providing the resources and guidelines Congress omitted two years ago when it took the positive step of transferring responsibility for the care of unaccompanied children from abroad from the Justice Department to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Health and Human Services Department.

Since that shift, there have been far fewer horror stories of foreign children with no criminal records being held for long periods at dreary detention sites. To help cement that progress, the legislation would set minimum standards for custody, expand foster care programs and allow for the hiring of child welfare professionals to serve as temporary guardians.

Perhaps most important, the measure would begin to create a nationwide system of pro bono legal representation for such unaccompanied children, most of whom speak little or no English.

The measure cleared the Judiciary Committee in April. Its prime sponsors, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, are now hoping to get prompt passage by the full Senate. By quickly moving the bill, the Senate can challenge the House to match its show of moral leadership.