The book examines where, why and to what extent immigrant children are represented in the child welfare system in 11 high-income countries. By comparing policies and practices in child welfare systems (and welfare states), especially in terms of how they conceptualize and deal with immigrant children and their families, we address an immensely important and pressing issue in modern societies.
Children in immigrant families represent nearly one-fourth of all children living in the United States. As this population of children has increased, so has their representation among children involved in child welfare and related systems. Once immigrant families come to the attention of these systems, they often have multiple and complex needs that must be addressed to ensure children’s safety and well-being. Culturally competent practice with Latino, Asian, and African immigrants requires that professionals understand the impact of immigration and acculturation on immigrant families to conduct adequate assessments and provide interventions that respond appropriately to their needs. Professionals also need to be familiar with federal and state policies that affect immigrant families and how those policies may affect service delivery. At the system level, child welfare agencies need to educate and train a culturally competent workforce that responds appropriately to children and families from diverse cultures. This book addresses these critical issues and provides recommendations for the development of culturally competent assessment, intervention, and prevention activities in child welfare agencies. This information can be used as a resource by child welfare administrators, practitioners, and students to improve the child welfare system’s response to immigrant children and families and promote culturally competent practice. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Public Child Welfare.
Each year, more than half a million migrant children journey from countries around the globe and enter the United States with no lawful immigration status; many of them have no parent or legal guardian to provide care and custody. Yet little is known about their experiences in a nation that may simultaneously shelter children while initiating proceedings to deport them, nor about their safety or well-being if repatriated. Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State examines the draconian immigration policies that detain unaccompanied migrant children and draws on U.S. historical, political, legal, and institutional practices to contextualize the lives of children and youth as they move through federal detention facilities, immigration and family courts, federal foster care programs, and their communities across the United States and Central America. Through interviews with children and their families, attorneys, social workers, policy-makers, law enforcement, and diplomats, anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink foregrounds the voices of migrant children and youth who must navigate the legal and emotional terrain of U.S. immigration policy. Cast as victims by humanitarian organizations and delinquents by law enforcement, these unauthorized minors challenge Western constructions of child dependence and family structure. Heidbrink illuminates the enduring effects of immigration enforcement on its young charges, their families, and the state, ultimately questioning whose interests drive decisions about the care and custody of migrant youth.
In the past decade, debates over immigrant rights and family rights, and accompanying concerns over birthright citizenship, have taken center stage in popular media and mainstream political debates. These debates, however, frequently overlook the role of the public child welfare system in the United States—the agency charged with protecting children and maintaining the integrity of families. Based on research conducted in the San Diego-Tijuana region between 2008 and 2012, Fragile Families tells the stories of children, parents, social workers, and legal actors enmeshed in the child welfare system, and sheds light on the particular challenges faced by the children of detained and deported non-U.S. citizen parents who are simultaneously caught up in the immigration system in this border region. Many families come into contact with child welfare services because of the precariousness of their lives—unsafe housing, unstable employment, and the conditions of violence, drug use, and domestic violence made visible by the heightened police presence in impoverished communities. Naomi Glenn-Levin Rodriguez examines the character of child welfare decision-making processes and how discretionary decisions constitute the central avenue through which race, citizenship, and other cultural processes inflect child welfare practice in a manner that disproportionately impacts Latina/o families—both undocumented and U.S. citizens. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork to look at how immigration enforcement and child welfare play central roles in the ongoing production of citizenship, race, and national belonging, Fragile Families focuses on the everyday experiences of Latina/o families whose lives are shaped at the nexus of child welfare services and immigration enforcement.
