Unaccompanied Immigrant and Refugee Children

Unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children are generally seen as young people (under the age of eighteen) who travel across borders to a new country without a parent or legal guardian. Across the world, these young people are subject to different legal definitions, rights, and treatment in the country of arrival. Some countries use other terms to refer to these children, such as unaccompanied alien children, unaccompanied immigrant children, unaccompanied children, and separated children. Researchers similarly use a compilation of these terms. The definitions that describe these vulnerable children are similar, yet they vary from one country to another. The majority include the age of eighteen years as the maximum age for which a child would qualify as an unaccompanied minor. The majority specify that the immigrant should arrive without legal guardians, but some countries, such as Australia, explicitly state that siblings and adult relatives over the age of eighteen would prohibit the child from being unaccompanied by policy. Some countries combine unaccompanied and separated children together, and others consider “separated” to be a different category. The nuance here is that separated children are apart from their biological parents during migration but intend to reunify and are often staying in the care of extended family members during that time. Unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children are protected by both international and country-specific policies. Many countries around the world are party to the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and would argue that unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children who arrive to their country should be given rights as outlined in this document. This becomes inherently complicated when countries have policies that criminalize immigrants rather than protect the status of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children seeking assistance. While there are protections, there are also many instances in which people, governments, and policies discriminate against unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children and treat them poorly.