Treacherous crossings, precarious arrivals: Responses to the influx of unaccompanied minors in the Hudson Valley

In June 2014 approximately 10,000 unaccompanied minors migrated to the United States from Central America. By the end of 2014 a total of 51, 705 children crossed the southwest border of the Rio Grande. The initial influx of child migrants into the Hudson Valley created a humanitarian crisis. The overwhelming majority of kids spoke either Spanish or only their indigenous language and many were traumatized by the journey. There were no services in place for these minor children or for their sponsors. Service providers, educators, and immigration lawyers were caught off guard and scrambled desperately to find solutions to the complex problems associated with the unprecedented arrival of unaccompanied immigrant children. This research examines how federal immigration policy impacted child migrants at the local Hudson Valley level and the collective response by service providers, educators, activists, and immigration lawyers to effectively deal with the crisis. Through twenty-five qualitative interviews, obtained via snowball sample, we present the voices of those on-the-ground individuals who responded to the lack of support for these kids, and attempted to organize an interconnected web of local services, in the context of federal immigration policy. In addition, we present alternative policy recommendations formulated by service providers and immigration advocates based on their experiences working with unaccompanied minors and their family members. Finally, we present policy suggestions of our own, based on our fieldwork and our combined expertise.