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Eight people walking on the horizon, with one farther ahead than the others

Children on the Move

Efforts to respond appropriately to migrant and asylum-seeking children and families require innovative thinking and collaborative action. Young people who have lived the migration experience and those who have helped them navigate risk and find protection along the way must inform and guide the response.

People

Marisa O. Ensor portrait

Marisa O. Ensor

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Research Fellow

Gillian Huebner portrait

Gillian Huebner

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Executive Director

Joan Lombardi portrait

Joan Lombardi

Center for Child and Human Development; Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Senior Scholar; Senior Fellow

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Read the Innovating Protection for Children on the Move Across the Americas Summary Brief

In spring 2022, Georgetown University's Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the Institute for the Study of International Migration co-convened a series to bring a child-focused and solutions-oriented lens to the dynamic landscape of immigration between countries of origin and return, the U.S.-Mexico border, and within receiving communities across the United States. 

Publications

Building Bridges for Every Child

February 1, 2021

This paper, co-authored by Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, was published by UNICEF and illustrates how reception, care, and services for unaccompanied migrant children in the United States can be built around the best interests of each child.

Events

Blog Posts

In Our Shoes: Voices of Youth on the Move

December 18, 2023

Bertha, Isaias, Jimmi, Sasha, and Zahra, youth activists; Sweta Shah, Co-founder, ChildArise, and Research Fellow, Georgetown University Collaborative on Children’s Issues; Kelly Yzique-Zea, Assistant Director, Vulnerable Populations and Migration, UNICEF USA.

Have you ever wondered what it feels

Innovating Protection for Migrant and Asylum-Seeking Children in U.S. Communities

April 20, 2022

The number of young people fleeing high levels of violence, crime, natural disasters, food insecurity and poverty and crossing the U.S.-Mexico border reached a 20-year high in the U.S. government’s fiscal year 2021 (October 1, 2020 – September 30, 2021). This included a record number of children who…

Responses

Videos

Children on the Move: Lived Experience Is Expertise (Video)

September 22, 2023

Duration: 1 hour 44 minutes

Children on the Move: How Does the United States Respond to Children on the Move? (Video)

September 22, 2023

Duration: 1 hour 9 minutes

Children on the Move: How Do Our Local Communities Respond to Children on the Move? (Video)

September 22, 2023

Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes

Georgetown Units

Refugees stand at a Hungarian Railway Station

Institute for the Study of International Migration Georgetown Unit

Established in 1998, the Institute for the Study of International Migration is a research institute at the School of Foreign Service applying the best in social science, legal, and policy expertise to the complex and controversial issues raised by international migration.

Essays

Innovating Protection for Children on the Move across the Americas

"How did we manage to get here? We improvised. The safety we found—we created it ourselves." This is how a 16-year-old boy from Honduras summarized his journey across northern Central America and into the United States. "Now that I am here, I am still improvising.”

Hundreds of thousands of children…