Migrant and displaced children Children on the move are children first.
UNIFEC for every child
UNICEF/UN0185401/Sanadiki
Millions of children are on the move. Some are driven from their homes by conflict, poverty or climate change; others leave in the hope of finding a better life. Far too many encounter danger, detention, deprivation and discrimination on their journeys, at destination or upon return.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The suffering and exclusion of migrant and displaced children is not only unacceptable, but also preventable. A child is a child, no matter why she leaves home, where she comes from, where she is, or how she got there. Every child deserves protection, care and all the support and services she needs to thrive.
The impact of COVID-19
COVID-19 poses yet another threat to uprooted children. The frequently cramped conditions many of them live in make them more vulnerable to infectious diseases like COVID-19, while misinformation on the spread of COVID-19 exacerbates the xenophobia and discrimination many already face.
To reduce the death and disease burden of COVID-19 and ensure a meaningful socio-economic recovery, national strategies – including vaccine rollouts – should include migrant and displaced people. Excluding them not only presents an immediate health risk for communities, but also fuels xenophobia and stigma. Find out more....https://www.unicef.org/migrant-refugee-internally-displaced-children#migration-covid-pandemic
Yet, too often migrant and displaced children face numerous challenges in transit, at destination and upon return, often because they have few – or no – options to move through safe and regular pathways whether on their own or with their families. They may be forced into child labour, pressed into early marriage, exposed to aggravated smuggling, subjected to human trafficking, and put at risk of violence and exploitation or. They often miss out on education and proper medical care, and don’t find it easy to feel at home in the communities they arrive in; trying to learn a new language and fit into a new culture can make things especially hard. These difficulties have lasting physical and psychological effects and can prevent children on the move from reaching their full potential. The challenges have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.unicef.org/migrant-refugee-internally-displaced-children#migration-covid-pandemic The solution
Children should be safe from violence and be able to grow up with their families. They shouldn’t have to miss school or be scared to visit the doctor. They shouldn’t be discriminated against because of where they come from. They should be able to feel at home – wherever they find themselves and wherever home is.
Children around the world, regardless of where they are from and why they have left their homes, should be treated the same
UNICEF works around the world to help protect the rights of migrant and displaced children. We provide life-saving humanitarian supplies in refugee camps. We run child-friendly spaces – safe places where children on the move can play, where mothers can rest and feed their babies in private, where separated families can reunite. We support national and local governments to put in place laws, policies, systems and services that are inclusive of all children and address the specific needs of migrant and displaced children, helping them thrive.
UNICEF also collects, analyses and disseminates data and gathers evidence about the situation and individual experiences of children and young people on the move. We help keep families together. We work to end child immigration detention by helping governments put in place alternative community- and family-based solutions. We work with governments, the private sector and civil society. We empower children and youth on the move with cutting-edge solutions, partnering with them and making their voices heard.
The solutions exist, and they’re attainable. Learn more about our Agenda for Action to support children on the move.
The Global Refugee Compact
The Global Refugee Compact is an international agreement that sets the building blocks for a stronger, more predictable and more equitable international response to large refugee situations. The Compact, adopted in 2018, gives the international community and host countries a roadmap to better include refugees in national systems, societies and economies, to enable them to contribute to their new communities and to secure their own futures. The four key objectives of the Compact are: to ease pressures on host countries; increase refugee self-reliance; expand access to resettlement and other solutions; and support conditions in countries of origin for refugees to return in safety and dignity.
UNICEF is strongly committed to the Global Compact on Refugees and is working to help reach its objectives. UNICEF has developed a ‘Blueprint for Joint Action’ with UNHCR to renew our common commitment to the rights of refugee children and the communities that host them, and to support their inclusion and access to vital services. The blueprint documents good practices from our work around the world in support of refugee children and young people, as well as those of host communities.
The Global Compact for Migration
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is a landmark agreement that for the first time recognizes that children are central to migration management. It shows that UNICEF’s six-point Agenda for Action is doable and provides a framework to bring it to life. UNICEF actively participated in the 18 months of negotiations that led to the final document – including by facilitating the active participation of young migrants in this process. The Compact was adopted at an intergovernmental conference in Marrakech, Morocco, in December 2018. UNICEF is working to translate the commitments that governments agreed to in the Compact document into real change and positive impact in the lives of children on the move around the world, including as a member of the UN Network on Migration. Uprooted children and COVID-19
Migrant workers, refugees and their families often live in the most disadvantaged urban areas, where access to essential services is already limited – services under even heavier strain as COVID-19 spreads. Migrant and refugee children can also be confined in detention centres, live with disabilities, or be separated from their families, making them difficult to reach with accurate information in a language they understand.
Compounding all this, misinformation on the spread of COVID-19 exacerbates the xenophobia and discrimination that migrant and displaced children and their families already faced.
As governments roll out the COVID-19 vaccines, it is essential that all persons in a country have equitable access – including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and migrants. Inclusive vaccine plans and strategies are essential to reduce the death and disease burden of COVID-19.
Excluding migrants and displaced persons will have long-term consequences for social cohesion and stability. Not only does it present an immediate health risk for communities, but it also fuels xenophobia and stigma that could unleash violence and further exclusion from services. In addition, many migrants are supporting the COVID-19 response at the frontline and play an important role in keeping essential sectors running. They are therefore essential for service continuity and socio-economic recovery from the pandemic.
Trump May Be Gone, But the Fight Against His Border Wall Goes On
"The number of migrant children in Border Patrol custody is down significantly. "Pentagon to cancel Trump border wall projects using military funds""
Residents in Los Ebanos, Texas, on the Rio Grande thought Joe Biden’s victory would end their fears of losing their property for a wall. It hasn’t worked out that way.
Los Ebanos, Texas, is best known for its ferry, called El Chalán, which transports across the Rio Grande River people between the United States and Mexico. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
By Edgar Sandoval Published Sept. 11, 2021Updated Oct. 5, 2021
LOS EBANOS, Texas — The men showed up unannounced, but it didn’t take long for Aleida Flores Garcia to figure out why they were measuring portions of her backyard. “We are here to mark where a border wall would go,” they told her last summer as they surveyed the ranch her family has owned for five generations.
Ms. Garcia, the last surviving member of her family, had successfully fended off the federal government more than a decade ago, when a different president, George W. Bush, was intent on building a barrier that would cut across a large swath of her land. Now she stood guard as the men took notes and marked the path of an eventual barrier, tears streaming down her face, worried she wouldn’t be so lucky again.
Many Texans thought the issue would subside once President Biden took office. But in a move that critics said appeared designed to attract support from conservative voters ahead of his re-election campaign, Gov. Greg Abbott announced an ambitious proposal to pick up where Mr. Trump had left off.
He said he had set aside $250 million from the state’s general revenue to continue building a wall, and also asked people to donate online.
For the most part, the additional fencing would be erected on vacant ranch properties or land owned by the state or federal government. But residents fear that many areas under consideration include populated communities like Los Ebanos, those right on the border and frequent crossing spots for migrants.
The small town is a frequent border crossing for migrants. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
Ms. Garcia, whose sprawling 30-acre ranch is called La Paloma, has grown accustomed to the sight of desperate and thirsty migrants — many of them fleeing violence and poverty in Central America — wandering in her backyard. “They are human beings,” she said. “A wall is not going to deter anyone.”
When the men in construction hats and measuring tape arrived at her home last summer, while Mr. Trump was still president, she balked — but also worried. The federal government was intent on building on her property, she said, and it initiated an eminent domain case to take the property if she would not willingly give it up.
But then Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election and Ms. Garcia felt relief, as President Biden had vowed to pause construction of a wall. “We thought Biden was going to give us our land back,” she said.
But eight months after Mr. Biden took office, 100 lawsuits remain open against Texans who own land along the border, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project, a civil rights group.
Pam Rivas, who owns property in Los Ebanos but lives several miles away in the more populated city of Edinburg, said she had little hope that her land would be returned until the government abruptly began steps to do just that last week to owners like her. Her case is ongoing and was scheduled to go to court this month. At issue was not whether the government has the authority to build a wall along seven acres of her property, but how much she would be compensated for it, said her lawyer, Ricky Garza.
“This has been a long fight,” said Ms. Rivas, 60.
Ms. Garcia, for her part, has stopped tending to her property. New fencing, as planned, would cut her off from 90 percent of her backyard. “The wall is coming,” she said. “What’s the point?”
While Mr. Biden halted construction on the border wall on his first day in office, lawyers with the Texas Civil Rights Project said that in recent months there had been little movement by the Department of Justice to dismiss the pending litigation and lawsuits over property, until this month, when legal filings began to show movement that they are willing to return the land to a handful of owners. They also said that some construction for border barriers has resumed in parts of the Rio Grande Valley .. https://myrgv.com/local-news/2021/08/22/legal-limbo-as-border-wall-lawsuits-remain-in-limbo-construction-resumes/ .
A Customs and Border Protection official said the work was levy repairs to mitigate flooding.
Department of Justice officials said a few dozen cases were pending, but added that the department was also evaluating whether any landowners qualified to get their property back and was inquiring if other owners were even interested in getting it back. Some officials pointed to a case where the federal government reversed course and planned to return the land to its owner in nearby Starr County.
Ah, the Blackwater guy just has gotta milk every misery for all the money he can. Erik Prince, one of the honcho contractors who likely defrauded Americans in his taking so much of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. P - The same guy who worked with the Trump team in their efforts to secure secret communication channels with Russia toward the 2020 election [...] Meanwhile, we know for a fact -- again, literally -- that Paul Manafort and Rex Tillerson have extensive financial ties to Russian oligarchs and Putin himself. We know that Betsy DeVos is the sister of Blackwater chief Erik Prince, who tried to set up a backchannel on Syria with the Russians on behalf of the Trump team. We absolutely know that Mike Flynn has extensive links to Putin and Putin's puppet in Turkey, President Erdogan. We know that Trump's Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, was formerly the vice chairman of, and a major shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, a reputed money-laundering front for vast amounts of Russian cash, including money that hopped from the Russian "Fertilizer King" to the Bank of Cyprus and then to Donald Trump's bank account in exchange for an overpriced, nouveau-riche property in Palm Beach [ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html ] that was never lived-in and has since been demolished -- before winning Trump a colossal $60 million profit in the biggest single home real estate deal in American history. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165626099
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