As the one-year anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has come and gone, about 100 Afghan youth remain in United States government custody without their parents—the majority of whom are placed in shelters and other congregate care settings. This number reflects both great progress in releasing hundreds of Afghan youth to sponsors over the past year and significant issues that plague the system serving unaccompanied minors.
Afghan children fled to the U.S. hoping to find security and freedom after unexpectedly having to leave their lives and families behind. But for too many of these children, one unimaginable trauma was replaced with another: After escaping the brutal Taliban regime, Afghan youth who have yet to be reunited with family have languished for months in highly regimented settings ill-suited to meet the needs of children with complex trauma.
As attorneys representing children in federal immigration custody, we have traveled around the country over the past year, interviewing detained Afghan youth and hearing first-hand about their experiences in U.S. custody since the fall of Kabul. One young man shared his harrowing journey from Kabul to Qatar to Michigan to New York; his fears that he and his Afghan “brothers” were being forgotten and that no one was working on their cases; his sadness that he could not speak to his family in Afghanistan more often; his frustration over not being able to go to a real school or be part of American life; and his feelings of complete isolation as he and the other Afghan youth often spent 23 hours a day in the same building, apparently due to rigid rules, staff shortages, and the cold New York winter.
These stories are absolutely devastating, but for us, all too familiar. Children in federal immigration custody face a restrictive care system that all too often fails to meet the needs of children that…
Source : time
