Unaccompanied children are among the most vulnerable people in the immigration system. They face the immigration system without a parent or legal guardian available to care for them, often after abuse, neglect, or loss. Many are fleeing serious harm no child should ever endure, and they come here looking for safety. When they arrive, they are asked to navigate one of the most complicated legal systems in our country, often without a lawyer to guide them.

Right now, these children are facing pressure from every direction.

Federal funding for unaccompanied children to have lawyers has ended. Asylum interviews are being scheduled on compressed timelines. Filing fees that were once nonexistent, are adding new barriers. And Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a pathway for children who were abused, abandoned, or neglected, no longer provides the same protection from being sent back to the dangers they fled in their home country.

For a child facing all of this, a lawyer is the difference between standing alone and having someone in their corner. Here is what that looks like.

Christian* came to Safe Passage Project in 2019 as a teenager and earned Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Then in 2025, on Thanksgiving weekend, he was detained by ICE. Alone and cut off from his attorney, he signed paperwork agreeing to leave the country, believing he had no other choice.

Our attorneys did not accept that paperwork as the end of his story. They filed motions, appealed his bond denial, and took action in federal court on his behalf. Then came a final hearing with just 19 days notice, a hearing that would decide whether Christian could stay.

Christian was released and granted a green card.

Without a lawyer, Christian would have had to navigate detention, motions, an appeal, federal litigation, and a hearing deciding whether he could remain in the United States largely on his own. He would not have known which legal tools were available to him, much less how to use them.

Many young people are doing exactly that. They stand in front of an immigration judge with no one beside them. Christian’s outcome was possible because a lawyer stood with him.

This is what is at stake.

Safe Passage Project is continuing to stand with children through this moment. We are working to preserve experienced legal teams, maintain continuity for the young people we already represent, and make sure we can respond when a child is detained or faces an urgent threat to their safety or legal status.

Many of you have asked a fair question: What comes next? What are we building toward?

The answer has two parts: First, keep experienced lawyers in place for children who need them today. Second, build a broader, more resilient base of support so that a child’s access to a lawyer never depends on a single funding source.

Both are urgent, and we cannot build the second if the first falls apart.

Philanthropy can act now. Flexible funding keeps experienced attorneys with the children they represent, including those in shelters and detention. It also lets legal teams respond quickly when a child is detained, when a child’s rights are at risk, or when fast action is needed to prevent removal or protect a safe reunification with family.

Just as importantly, philanthropic support gives Safe Passage Project the time and stability to build a more durable funding model; one that draws from public funding, institutional philanthropy, and individual giving rather than leaving children’s access to counsel vulnerable to the decisions of any single funder or administration.

This is not only an immigration issue. It is a child-welfare, civil rights, and access to justice issue.

Philanthropy can help preserve independent, child-centered legal representation now while a more diversified and sustainable funding base is built for tomorrow.

We have to build a stronger funding model for the future. But children have hearings tomorrow, next week, and next month. They cannot wait for us to build it. They need lawyers now.

*Christian is a pseudonym. We have changed his name to protect his privacy.