Safe Passage Project’s Executive Director, Angela Fernandez, spoke with Documented to discuss the impact of funding cuts to the Unaccompanied Children Program:

In New York, the majority of unaccompanied children arrive from countries in Latin America such as Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador. Legal representation is often the deciding factor between safety and deportation for immigrant children, said Angela Fernández, executive director at Safe Passage Project, which represents immigrant children in New York. ‘The Unaccompanied Children Program is not just a lifeline,’ she said. ‘It is a moral obligation to protect immigrant children.’

Safe Passage Project has won 90% of its cases of relief for children, but Fernández says without legal representation, that success rate drops dramatically to below 20%.

Read the full article here.