While our asylum-seeking children flee to America to find safety, not every child who arrives has a family member to take them in. Independent sponsors are people who generously open their hearts and homes to children with whom they’ve had no prior relationship. This enables a child who might otherwise be confined in detention for months or years to be released into real homes and communities where they can grow and thrive.
Do you think this might be right for you and your family? Let us help you sort out the complexities involved in this decision. We spend a great deal of time talking one on one with each potential sponsor to make sure that this is right for you.
Sponsorship Guide
Nearly all children who come into this country unaccompanied by a parent (and some who are) are taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). They are placed in locked facilities often located in remote areas of the United States. While most children are ultimately released to the sponsorship of relatives living here, some are not. This can happen for several different reasons: a relative is unable to take them due to their own status or because their sponsorship application was denied by ORR; or they have no family or close family friends living in the United States.
When children are taken into ORR custody, the adult relatives who brought them are taken separately into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and generally detained in adult facilities. Some of these relatives are deported, leaving these children on their own. Other children, generally those who are slightly older, come on their own for a number of reasons: fleeing violent communities; escaping domestic violence; and desperately poor families who cannot afford to send other family members.
All of the children requiring independent sponsors are in a new culture requiring help, patience, and guidance while they navigate these new relationships, new expectations, a new language, even a new terrain and, for many, a new climate. The unfamiliar may be exciting or frightening, and their homesickness may be profound. If they enter a home with other children, finding their place in that home presents special challenges (as it does for the children of sponsors). Most of these children have been in detention longer than others and may have feelings about seeing their peers released to family when they had none. We know there will be an adjustment period and ask patience from all of our sponsors in helping these children to gently integrate into their new homes and lives.
Virtually all of these children have been traumatized—psychologically and often physically—by the circumstances which led them to flee their countries; the journey to the United States; treatment at the border, including separation from relatives; and protracted confinement in ORR institutional settings.
While some children demonstrate signs and symptoms of trauma from the time they arrive in the United States, others hide these symptoms from those they regard to be unsafe, such as detention personnel. Their symptoms may emerge later on, often when they find themselves in a safer, loving environment. These children need understanding, love, and, sometimes, psychological treatment. Other children, particularly those who are older and have endured minimal trauma in their countries of origin, exude a level of true maturity beyond what we generally see in American teenagers. Many of these children took on a great deal of responsibility for their family in home countries and may require no additional treatment at all.
Anyone who applies to sponsor these children needs to be educated about the signs and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and must commit to seeking treatment and help should these symptoms appear.
For many reasons, the children most in need of independent sponsorship are teens. This is because it is often these children who come into the country by themselves without family who have been arranged to care for them. Sometimes these youth are fleeing domestic violence, or have family members who have been killed or abandoned them. We find that many families who think of sponsorship imagine bringing a small child into their home, possibly because they have other small children or believe that it is “safer” or “easier” than sponsoring a youth with “teen problems”
We at ESH see the tremendous advantages for families who sponsor teens, and who report to us the joy and gratification they have in bringing a more mature and verbal child into their family:
We appreciate that this administration and the media have unfortunately contributed to the impression that teens fleeing Central America are, somehow, “dangerous”. This is a profound misimpression, based often on a deliberate attempt to turn the public against children and families fleeing some of the worst violence in the world. Having come to know many of these remarkable adolescents and spoken with the families who are sponsoring them, we know that this opportunity is not only a gift to them but also to those who generously take them in. We encourage all of our sponsors to consider the wonderful experience of sponsoring a teen.
For a period of time, ORR refused to consider sponsorship for any individuals who did not have a verifiable pre-existing relationship with the child. A court case led to the modification of these regulations, but the process is still somewhat arduous.
RELATIONSHIP WITH AND CONSENT OF PARENTS IN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
Where there are viable parents in the country of origin, all sponsorship applicants must connect to those parents and initiate a relationship. We generally ask that all verified biological parents sign and have a notarized letter authorizing the applicants to become the sponsors for their child.
RELATIONSHIP/VISIT WITH CHILD:
Applicants must begin their relationship with the child while that child is still within ORR custody. To facilitate this, ESH will work with personnel at the child’s ORR facility, such as the case manager, attorney, and advocate. Phone calls and video chats are arranged. When possible, ESH will fly potential sponsors to the location where the child is detained so that meetings can be set up with the child, their case manager, and their counselor. ESH will help to coordinate and prepare all applicants for this meeting.
PAPERWORK:
ESH asks that all paperwork be collected before any application is made to ORR for sponsorship. This is the paperwork which ORR itself will require:
HOME VISIT:
Virtually all non-related sponsor applicants will be subject to a home visit arranged and paid for by ORR. This entails a visit by a social worker who will ask a variety of questions and inspect your home for issues of adequacy and safety.
FINGERPRINTING:
All applicants must submit fingerprints that will pass inspection by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI. In addition to the applicants themselves, the fingerprint screening of other household members may be required by ORR. ESH can help to set these up for you.
The person immediately responsible for addressing sponsorship and release of each child in detention is that child’s case manager. This is someone who is employed to look into placement options and communicate with potential sponsors, gather all of the relevant information and forms, and make a recommendation regarding sponsorship. This case manager usually, but not always, has an office at the facility where the child is housed and is tasked with keeping the child informed about the progress towards their release.
Once the case manager makes their recommendation, all of the information is passed along to a case coordinator at a large company contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The case coordinator never meets or speaks with the child or the potential sponsor. They merely review the paperwork and notes of the case manager, make their recommendation, and pass it along to the Federal Field Specialist (FFS), who is an employee of ORR. The FFS makes the final decision regarding sponsorship and release and forwards that decision back to the facility, which is then charged with arranging for the child’s release, if the sponsorship is approved.
Once sponsorship has been approved, the facility where the child is being detained must arrange for release within 72 hours. Sometimes they will ask for money from the sponsor to pay for the child to be flown from the city nearest the detention center to the airport closest to the sponsors. We work with sponsors to assist them with these travel arrangements and discourage sponsors from paying anyone for this service. We will be happy to discuss this with you once you are at this point.
As invested as we are in seeing every child released from detention, we recognize that it is critical to assure that the homes to which children are released will be safe and secure, with sponsors who will provide for the particular needs of any given child. We want to make certain that potential sponsors understand the commitment they are making, are prepared both psychologically and physically to take a child into their homes, and overall will be successful in the very important role they wish to play with these wonderful, brave, and too often traumatized children.
Accordingly, we start by screening every adult who wishes to take on this role so that we’re certain that all the sponsorship requirement information is understood and their living/housing situation is appropriate. The screening process is also initiated to answer any questions the potential sponsor might have and to get a sense for which child might be the best match for that sponsor. For example, some of our sponsors have their own small children whose lives will be altered by the addition of a new child to the family. We want to make certain that any placement that’s made in their home will cause minimal disruption to the sponsor’s family and will add to the richness of the experience of all family members.
Once we decide that a particular sponsor is a good match for the needs of a particular child, we partner with sponsor families throughout the entire process. We’ll inform the facility of the potential sponsor who we have screened, help to gather and complete all of the paperwork, and connect the sponsor with the child’s family in their country of origin. We assist with initial meetings between the sponsor and child and are available to answer questions and to expedite the release of that child into their sponsor family and community. We’re also available to help with other related issues, such as how to inform and include the sponsor family’s own children in this process. We are happy to connect potential sponsors to other families who currently sponsor or have previously sponsored a migrant child.
Sometimes wonderful families would like to sponsor a child but no appropriate child is available at that moment. We keep a database of all sponsors we have screened. If you have gone through this process with us, please be assured that we will call on you as soon as we locate the right child in need of a non-familial sponsor. We are very grateful for the generosity and patience of our sponsor families.
Please feel free to contact us with any further questions.
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