US System for Immigrant Children is Improving

Conditions have improved for unaccompanied children, but some still face inadequate services and overly harsh discipline. This is according to a new report by the Womens Commission and the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. The AP reports:

Researchers visited more than 30 facilities around the country to examine the effects of a 2003 change in the federal system for overseeing the thousands of children who arrive alone.

More than 90,000 such children were apprehended in 2007 along the country's southern border. Most were immediately sent back to their homeland — Mexico, in many cases — but about 8,000 were placed in U.S. custody, the report said.

Those children must be transferred to HHS' Division of Unaccompanied Children's Services, created in 2003. Before that, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service handled the apprehension and custody of unaccompanied immigrant minors.

The division has placed some children in foster care, housed others in child-friendly shelters or group facilities, and reunited many more with parents or relatives while awaiting the outcomes of their immigration cases, the report said.

Children have gotten better medical care, psychological treatment and education under the division's oversight than they did before, said Brane, director of the refugee commission's detention and asylum program.

But the study also found that as the number of children in custody surged, some facilities became more restrictive of the children's activities and behavior, and there were few therapeutic programs for those who were victims of gang violence, sexual abuse or abandonment. Some children also lacked legal representation, the study said.

Researchers also found some children weren't transferred into the division's care within the required 72 hours and were treated like criminals.

Children and staffers reported that some children arrived at shelters and homes in handcuffs. One girl said she was thrown to the ground and accused of being a drug smuggler; a boy with a broken shoulder said a Border Patrol agent twisted his arm when he did not raise it.

The study authors visited facilities in Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington state between April 2007 and February 2008.