As City Sees Uptick in Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth, Lawmakers Probe ‘Gaps in Services’

As City Sees Uptick in Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth, Lawmakers Probe ‘Gaps in Services’


As the number of immigrants and asylum seekers arriving in New York City has increased, so has the number of unaccompanied minors, advocates and city officials said during a recent hearing.

As City Sees Uptick in Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth, Lawmakers Probe ‘Gaps in Services’

Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit

Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who chairs the Committee on Immigration, and Councilmember Althea Stevens, who chairs the Commitee on Children and Youth, during Tuesday’s hearing.

Some arrived as children. Others arrived as teenagers, some without any documentation. Others used passports showing they were of legal age, even when they weren’t, simply to be able to board a plane, leave their families or troubled countries, and enter the United States alone.

Members of the City Council heard these stories during a hearing Tuesday on unaccompanied immigrant minors in the U.S. and New York City, held jointly by the Committee on Immigration and the Committee on Children and Youth.

Generally, when minors cross the border without a parent and encounter immigration officials, they are designated as unaccompanied minors (UCs or UACs) and placed in shelters with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ORR is required to care for unaccompanied children until they are placed with a sponsor, who can be a parent or relative, while their immigration cases proceed. 





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