April 30, 2015
KIND played a pivotal role in responding to the unprecedented unaccompanied child migration emergency that began in May and continued throughout the summer.
More than 60,000 children fleeing violence and abuse and seeking safety in the U.S. were apprehended by the end of September 2014 – three times more than the previous year and ten times the historical norm.
Thanks to our supporters, new and old, we were able to add more staff and additional resources around the country to help meet the incredible need for legal representation for these uniquely vulnerable children. We were particularly successful in bringing new corporations on board and in expanding our relationships with existing law firm partners. KIND now has more than 250 law firm, corporate, and law school partners who have agreed to represent children referred to KIND. We have trained more than 9,500 attorneys nationwide since 2009, making great strides in our goal to create a robust national network of trained attorneys to help unaccompanied children make their cases for U.S. protection. We have been referred more than 7,500 children, and helped many gain status in the US.
We successfully broadened our advocacy for unaccompanied children in Central America and Mexico to help ensure that protection of migrant children becomes a priority in the region wherever they are in their journeys – en route, in the U.S., or returning to their home countries.
