Education

Angelina Jolie and Microsoft Team Up to Help Unaccompanied Minors

By Mary Ann Zehr — October 20, 2008 1 min read
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I’ve met some of these kids. Some of you have met some of these kids. Each year about 8,000 immigrant children who have crossed illegally into the United States without their parents and been arrested by federal immigration authorities are turned over to the care of the U.S. government. Microsoft, 25 law firms, and Angelina Jolie, the actress and human rights activist, have joined together to ensure that the children have lawyers to represent them in navigating the immigration system, according to an Oct. 16 article in the National Law Journal. From what I’ve learned in my reporting, even if they have a good lawyer, some of these kids may be detained in a shelter for more than a year.

Meanwhile, a new documentary has just been released that tells more about why unaccompanied children from other countries try to cross into the United States illegally and what life is like for them at one shelter in Los Angeles, Casa Libre, where some of them end up. (Hat tip to ImmigrationProf blog.)

A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.