HEEDING THE VOICES OF MIGRANT YOUTH: THE NEED FOR ACTION.

• Author: Mandelbaum, Randi

UNACCOMPANIED: THE PLIGHT OF IMMIGRANT YOUTH AT THE BORDER. By Emily Ruehs-Navarro. New York: New York University Press. 2022. Pp. ix, 163. Cloth, $89; paper, $28.

INTRODUCTION

Nicolas is a sixteen-year-old boy who was forced to flee Ecuador due to extreme poverty as well as threats to him and his family (pp. 1-2). His father had resided in the United States for a decade, so not only was the United States a place of safety, it also was where Nicolas could achieve his dream of reuniting with his dad (pp. 1-2). As Emily Ruehs-Navarro's Unaccompanied: The Plight of Immigrant Youth at the Border (1) unfolds, we learn what happens to Nicolas, as well as many other migrant youth and the professionals who work with them. We also see how critical it is to listen to the stories of these young people and learn from their experiences. For it is these first-hand accounts that expose, in shocking detail, the hardships and inhumane treatment that so many migrant youth are forced to endure.

Much has been written about the suffering and appalling treatment of unaccompanied immigrant youth. But sociologist Emily Ruehs-Navarro's new book provides a unique perspective through a graphic account of what happens to them once they are released from government custody into the care of parents, relatives, and close family friends. Her discussion, based largely on interviews with youth (2) and those working with them, is rich and deeply nuanced, revealing the complexities and immense challenges that noncitizen youth face when they flee to the United States (p. 20).

Having been denied access to the many detention centers and shelters around the country where youth are detained and warehoused, Ruehs-Navarro instead decides to focus on what occurs once youth are permitted to leave government custody. In particular, she centers her analysis on how youth first experience the United States and the relationships they develop with three distinct groups of people: (1) their caregivers, (2) their attorneys, and (3) the teachers and other staff who comprise our educational systems (pp. 33-34).

Through narratives, Ruehs-Navarro discusses the experiences and perspectives of both young people and the professionals who work with them. She vividly details the intricate systems in which they operate and demonstrates the difficulties migrant youth face in attempting to stabilize their lives and immigration statuses. In doing so, she is appropriately critical of the family reunification, legal, and educational systems with which the youth interface, and the professionals who work within or at the margins of these systems. Finding that "the adult professionals who intend to help youth do so within the restraints of a system that works at the crossroads of border security, racialized child welfare, and neoliberal humanitarianism" (p. 2), Ruehs-Navarro pronounces that the systems intended to help migrant youth are, in fact, broken. (3) And within these broken systems, it is impossible for many youth to have a voice, stabilize their immigrations status, and successfully transition into adulthood. At best, the professionals working in these systems face a host of ethical and moral dilemmas in doing their jobs; at worst, they are complicit in the harm inflicted on these young people (pp. 150-51).

Ruehs-Navarro concludes her book by beautifully describing what a nonracist, nonviolent, child-centered world would look like--one free of border police, detention centers, immigration courts, and laws and policies that force youth to be traumatized or retraumatized in order to receive immigration relief (pp. 158-62). She imagines an easier path for youth to reunify with their parents or extended family members, advocates for financial and social service support for these reunifications, and proposes that no youth should have to appear in immigration court. Rather, migrant youth should have the support of a multidisciplinary team to determine what will happen in their best interest (pp. 156-57). In making these recommendations, Ruehs-Navarro highlights how the current system does not work to achieve the wellbeing of these young people, but instead intentionally works against it.

While the book brilliantly provides a first-hand account of how unaccompanied youth experience their first few months and years in the United States and the many obstacles they face, its focus is limited in that it only concentrates on youth who are released from government custody and end up connected with attorneys, school personnel, and/or other social service providers. On a more systemic level, Ruehs-Navarro discusses racialized child welfare systems primarily in the context of the professionals who work within the immigration system. She does not situate the circumstances of migrant youth into the larger discussion of child welfare and human rights. Ruehs-Navarro would have enhanced her analysis by taking a deeper look at how the treatment of these youth is not only racist, but a violation of our domestic child welfare laws and policies, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). (4) For example, there are no more than a few passing references to how the systems created to care for migrant youth operate entirely differently and separately from domestic child welfare systems. And while there is some discussion of how the systems work against the agency and voice of youth and the promotion of their wellbeing (p. 104), there is little discussion of how these transgressions fit into the larger conversation around human rights and youth as possessors of these rights.

This Book Review is divided into three parts. Part I reviews the challenges Ruehs-Navarro uncovered in the family reunification, legal, and educational systems. It also details the many obstacles and dilemmas present for the people working within these systems, mainly professionals who are trying to help the youth but are thwarted at every turn due to the systems' many failings. Part II highlights how Ruehs-Navarro's analysis and conclusions could be augmented by situating the circumstances of noncitizen youth into the larger discussion of child welfare reform and the care and treatment of youth in government custody. When considered in this context, it becomes clear that the current system that takes in migrant youth is not only racist, but contrary to best practices in child protection and international human rights standards in its failure to meet the needs of unaccompanied youth. But why is this so? Why does the federal government fail to comply with the laws and policies demanded of our domestic child welfare systems? Moreover, why are international human rights standards not applicable to noncitizen youth in the United States? Part III takes Ruehs-Navarro's recommendations and builds upon them, calling for a nonracist system focused on the wellbeing of youth that does not distinguish between citizen or noncitizen and that is grounded in the principles of child wellbeing, liberty, and autonomy.

1. LISTENING TO YOUTH AND THOSE WHO WORK WITH THEM

   Unaccompanied is divided into five chapters. After a lengthy introductory chapter, the next three chapters focus on the systems with which the youth interface: the family reunification system, the legal system, including the attorneys who work with young people, and the educational system. Chapter Four then discusses the pervasive and insidious themes that Ruehs-Navarro finds operating in these systems--those of border security, racialized child welfare, and neoliberal humanitarianism. Chapter Five concludes with recommendations as to how the systems should be overhauled.

   In the introductory chapter, Ruehs-Navarro explains why so many youth are forced to migrate to the United States, what happens to them when they arrive alone at our southern border, and how the majority of youth end up in our communities, with family, but with little, if any, support. She also describes her interview methods. Ruehs-Navarro met with fifteen youth and sixty-seven professionals (p. 26). The youth were ages seventeen to twenty-four and included three females and twelve males from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico (p. 29). The professionals, eleven men and fifty-six women, consisted of eighteen attorneys and legal service providers, fourteen government workers, six government facility workers, seventeen educators, and twelve other professionals, who constituted a mix of social workers, community members, and activists (pp. 27-28). The majority of the professionals described themselves as white, and a third as Latinx (p. 28).

   Chapter One, entitled Leaving and Finding Home (p. 37), focuses on what happens when the youth arrive in the United States and the process of placing them with family members or close family friends, what Ruehs-Navarro calls the "family reunification process" (p. 46). It begins with the stories of five youths who migrated to the United States for various reasons, including child abuse and neglect, abandonment by one or both parents, extreme poverty, gang violence, and discrimination against Indigenous people. (5) All the youths, like Nicolas, viewed the United States as a place of safety with educational and economic opportunities (p. 45). Many were also seeking to reunify with parents who had fled to the United States years earlier. (6) Scholars view these diverse migration reasons as "push and pull" factors (7) and discuss how most youth have a myriad of reasons for migrating. (8)

   When youth under the age of eighteen arrive in the United States without a parent or legal guardian and without any immigration status, they must be designated as "unaccompanied." (9) This provides some protections, including the right to not be held for more than seventy-two hours by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and to be quickly turned over to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee...