Angelina Jolie Pays for Legal Help for Detained Immigrant Children
What do Angelina Jolie and I have in common? We've both visited an immigration detention center in the United States for unaccompanied minors. These centers house children who are picked up by federal immigration authorities without their parents. Often, the children are trying to reunite with their parents in the United States.
Last school year, I visited the Boystown shelter for unaccompanied minors in Miami and wrote about the school there run by the Miami-Dade public school district.
Ms. Jolie, well-known for her off-screen involvement in humanitarian causes, has visited a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Phoenix run by Southwest Key Programs.
She recently decided* to give $150,000 to a center at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants that has a mission to provide pro-bono lawyers and social services to unaccompanied minors. A press release says Ms. Jolie has given half a million dollars to the committee over the years.
Believe me, some of those kids can probably use a good lawyer. At Boystown, I interviewed a youth who had been detained at the shelter for eight months and another who had been held for 14 months—and pro bono lawyers got them out.
One of the teenagers who I interviewed had learned to read at the shelter, but he was still really glad to have gained his freedom.
*(Previously I said this news was announced today, but I see the press release is from 12/31. I got it today.)
Comments
I don't understand. This money will be used to keep illegal immigrant children here in the United States? That's not good news. Better they go back to their home country with their parents accompanying them. That's the way to not divide families.
Posted by: Anonymous | January 3, 2008 10:09 PM
This is indeed good news. Reuniting families is always the goal, where possible, but keeping kids in detention -- no matter what their immigration status -- is unacceptable.
Posted by: SHS | January 4, 2008 8:09 AM
I'm so glad to see this happening and perhaps getting some media attention. Anyone who doubts whether or not this is a good thing should read the book "Enrique's Journey" about a boy trying to enter the US to be reunited with his mother. Whether or not the mother should have come at all is certainly up for debate, but these children certainly need all the help they get.
Posted by: Eleni | January 4, 2008 10:17 AM