Undocumented and Unaccompanied

Children of Migration in the European Union and the United States

Cecilia Menjívar, Krista Perreira, Cecilia Menjívar, Krista Perreira

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000505900
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

This book focuses on the migration of undocumented minors arriving recently to the United States and the European Union, flows that are often labeled 'undocumented', 'illegal', or 'irregular' and due to their sudden increase, they have been described in the media, policy circles, and scholarly work as a 'surge' or a 'crisis'. Leading scholars examine the intricacies of the contexts that these minors encounter in the localities where they arrive, including the legal and ethical frameworks for protecting unaccompanied minors, governmental decisions about the 'best interests' of the children, these minors' expressions of their own best interests or agency as they navigate immigration and social service systems, conditions in detention centers, and the health and social service needs in receiving communities.

Though definitions and techniques for counting unaccompanied migrant minors differ between the U.S. and the EU, this book underscores the immigrant minors' common vulnerabilities and strategies they adopt to protect themselves and improve their circumstances. At the same time, contributors to the volume highlight common challenges that both European and U.S. governments face as they develop policy strategies and legal mechanisms to attempt to balance the best interests of these children with national interests of the countries in which they settle.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Introduction

Cecilia Menjívar and Krista M. Perreira

ABSTRACT

Thousands of minors are migrating unaccompanied to high-income countries. This special issue focuses on unaccompanied migrant minors from the Global South to Europe and the U.S. In this introduction, we seek to complement the contributions to this special issue by shedding light on what resources and experiences unaccompanied migrants arrive with, stressing these young migrants’ challenges at each stage prior to arrival and the challenges they face navigating the receiving context. We first clarify how the international community defines ‘unaccompanied minors’ or ‘unaccompanied children’. We then provide brief histories of unaccompanied minors in immigration flows to the U.S. and the EU. Next, we review the literature on the experiences of unaccompanied minors before, during, and after migration. Finally, we discuss key themes and insights from the articles provided in this special issue.

Introduction

New migration flows from the Global South today constitute increasing numbers of non-adult, unaccompanied migrants. Although unaccompanied minors have participated in migratory flows in other historical periods, the current contexts of migration include new forms of immigration enforcement that rely on expanded collaborations and technology as well as different actors who facilitate migration. These contexts create new challenges and forms of vulnerability for these minors today. Child migrants often leave conditions of extreme inequalities, constraints, and risks with effects that are exacerbated by daunting obstacles and dangerous migratory routes. Thus, African children of various nationalities, Iranian, Afghan, and Iraqi children all cross the Mediterranean to arrive in the European Union (EU) with an accumulation of formidably difficult experiences similar to those with which Central American children arrive in the U.S. These children’s experiences position them differently and at greater disadvantage than past cohorts of childhood arrivals or other immigrants today. Importantly, although thousands of minors migrate unaccompanied to high-income countries, the vast majority are either internally displaced or stay in their region and go to poorer countries. Of the 65.3 million forcibly displaced adults and children in 2015, only 3.2 million were asylum seekers (see UNHCR 2015). This special issue focuses on unaccompanied migrant minors from the Global South to the European Union and the U.S.

The focus on unaccompanied minors from the Global South to Europe and the U.S. underscores the parallels in the pre-migration, migration, and post-migration experiences of these migrants. It recognises their common vulnerabilities and the strategies they adopt to protect themselves and improve their circumstances. Additionally, our attention to this group highlights the challenges that both European and U.S. governments face as they develop health, social service, and legal systems which seek to balance the best interests of these children with national interests of the countries in which they settle. Finally, our focus calls attention to the need for more cross-national, comparative research to contribute to theorising on immigrant integration, in general, while at the same time developing common policies and practices that facilitate the integration of these minors into their settlement communities and their transitions into adulthood.

Though definitions and techniques for counting unaccompanied minors differ between the U.S. and the EU,¹ the numbers of unaccompanied migrant minors in both regions have increased on average, with the majority being teenage boys ages 14–17 (Connor and Krogstad 2016; Hunter and Shklyan 2016; Krogstad 2016; U.S.). There were 24,403 apprehensions of minors at the U.S. southwest border in 2012, 38,759 in 2013, and 68,541 in 2014 (Hunter and Shklyan 2016). This spike caused alarm and prompted media scrutiny (Terrio 2015) and policy responses in summer 2014, attention that has remained even as the number decreased to 39,970 in 2015 (Hunter and Shklyan 2016). As of 2016, the migration of unaccompanied minors to the U.S. was composed primarily of Central American youth from El Salvador (17,512) Guatemala (18,913), and Honduras (10,468) as well as Mexico (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2016). Many of these unaccompanied children immediately present themselves to U.S.-border security whereas others enter the U.S. unnoticed and undocumented (Beltrán 2014). When identified by border security, the Central American minors who arrive in the U.S. can immediately state their asylum cases and are screened, processed, and held in detention for up to 72 hours.² In contrast, Mexicans are returned after a day or two as allowed by the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act. Thus, Mexican unaccompanied children are, as Goździak (2015, 7) notes, ‘out of sight and out of mind of the American public’.

The number of unaccompanied minors entering the EU also spiked, doubling from 13,800 in 2013 to 23,300 in 2014, and then quadrupling to 96,000 by 2015 (Connor and Krogstad 2016; Eurostat 2016a).³ In contrast to the U.S., the range of countries from which unaccompanied children originate is wider and has shifted slightly over the years owing to the intensity of the conflicts in the migrants’ home countries. Overall, according to Eurostat data, 198,500 unaccompanied minors have entered Europe seeking asylum since 2008 (Eurostat 2016a). The majority of these migrants have come from Afghanistan (79,700 or 39%), Syria (19,300), Somalia (13,200), Eritrea (11,600), Iraq (9,100), Albania (3,100) and Russia (2,700) (Connor and Krogstad 2016; Eurostat 2016a). As in the U.S., some of these migrants present themselves to border security to begin the process of seeking asylum while others enter as ‘irregular’ migrants and remain undetected and uncounted (EMN 2015). Depending on the receiving country, its enforcement efforts, and border controls in neighbouring transit countries, these minors can end up detained and deported (Menjívar 2014). As a result, children seeking protection may be found inadmissible, denied various forms of assistance and access to legal protection, and facing the possibility of removal (Deckert 2016).

Increases in unaccompanied child migrants have received scholarly attention, with most of it centred on explaining the sudden jump in these flows and their change over time (Rosenblum and Ball 2016). Some researchers have traced links between rising levels of violence in Central America to the increase in children migrating alone (Clemens 2017; UNHCR 2014; UNICEF 2016). Others have argued that child migration from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. results from the widespread and mature networks that facilitate their migration to reunite with their parents coupled with the continued need for their parents’ labour in the U.S. (Donato and Sisk 2015); however, this research also has identified a close relationship between child migration and levels of violence (Donato and Perez 2017). Furthermore, researchers have observed that unaccompanied migrant children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador apply for asylum in any country they can get to in the region, suggesting that ‘pull’ factors in the U.S., such as family and networks, are not central in propelling this migration; rather it is the violence in the sending countries that propels their migration from the region (Stinchcomb and Hershberg 2014). Such violence is so powerful that it can continue to drive migratory flows even when violence levels do not change; under these conditions, research has noted that a combination of the presence of smuggling networks, family connections abroad, and a minimum of resources to finance the journey are major determinants of these children’s migration (Clemens 2017).

Similarly, in unaccompanied children migrations to the EU, contexts of violence have been identified as spurring these large flows; the top sending countries of unaccompanied children arriving in the EU have been identified by the Global Peace Index as the least peaceful countries in the world today (Institute for Economics and Peace 2016). In 2015, over 60% of total migrants arriving in the EU were fleeing violence in the Middle East and North Africa (Johnson 2015). Thus, violent conditions in the sending countries, whether arising from state actions or criminal activities or both, have been identified as a common denominator in shaping the migration of unaccompanied children arriving in the EU and the U.S.

Given conditions of political, structural, and gender violence prevailing in the sending countries as well as the urgent nature of many of the journeys, these migrations overlap strongly with refugee flows. Agencies involved in responding to these flows recognise and highlight in their policy approaches the desperate living conditions and threats of violence that the minors are fleeing (UNHCR 2014). These agencies have defined the migrants as ‘refugees’ and appealed to receiving governments to abide by international conventions for the protection of refugees in addressing these flows.⁴ But receiving countries have been ambivalent about extending this designation. In contrast to policies developed by UNHCR (1997), unaccompanied child arrivals in the U.S. and EU are not always placed with foster care providers or guardians in their settlement communities and those seeking asylum face tremendous hurdles (Eurostat 2016b; Roubein 2014).

Because the unaccompanied minors on whom we focus have been unable to procure a visa and thus have undertaken their journeys surreptitiously, their flows also are often labelled ‘undocumented’, ‘illegal’, or ‘irregular’. And due to their sudden increase, these flows also have been described in the media, policy circles, and scholarly work as a ‘surge’ or a ‘crisis’. These terms evoke particular policy and public reactions including a ‘surge’ in resources to increase capacity for detentions (Hernandez 2015). As such, a common element in both migration ‘crises’ is that they have been met with harsh enforcement policies that focus on stopping the arrival of these minors in the transit countries, detention and deportation for those who make it to the destination, and deterrence strategies in the sending country so the minors do not initiate travel in the first place. Thus, efforts to contain these flows intertwine with enforcement strategies already in place in the EU and the U.S.

In some countries, governments respond with inclusionary policies, receptive communities, and the opportunity to apply for asylum, which opens the door to resources that can facilitate the children’s integration. In other countries, however, the government’s response includes enforcement and detention, particularly when the public in those countries are already apprehensive about increases in migratory flows and associate migration with crime and negative consequences. Some countries have concurrently established rights-based standards and procedures for assessing asylum seekers’ protection claims while at the same time creating barriers that prevent certain asylum seekers from setting foot on their territories (Frelick, Kysel, and Podkul 2016). For example, six months after the increase in the number of Central American unaccompanied children, the Obama administration announced the Central American Minors (CAM) Refugee/Parolee Program to facilitate in-country processing of applicants deemed to need humanitarian protection in the U.S. The success of this programme has been at best modest (Hipsman and Meissner 2015). The application process is complex and lengthy an...