'Unaccompanied' - Children On The Border
Washington, D.C, U.S -
'Unaccompanied’ - Children On The Border
A new surge of unaccompanied children from Central American countries is expected at the U.S. southern border, as officials ask Congress for more money to handle them. Customs and Border Protection estimated 75,000 children may arrive at the ports of entry before the end of the current fiscal year. Already, the number of minors arriving at the border is growing, with 20,000 apprehended at the border in the first five months of the federal fiscal year - double the number from a year earlier.
'Unaccompanied' is a visual story of youth immigrants who were among the thousands of children seeking refuge from the violence of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Following Obama's statement announcing a humanitarian crisis on the border in summer 2014, these youth captured the national spotlight. Countless articles related sensationalized stories of tragic and violent journeys. Noticeably absent from the discourse were the voices and stories of the youth themselves. What circumstances drove the children to seek refuge on US soil? What challenges do they face adapting to a new life in a foreign land? ’Unaccompanied' provides these youth a platform to directly share their personal stories with the public, free from the bias of a political agenda, and elevate their individual and collective challenges. Unaccompanied child immigrants represent an entanglement of issues in both the countries they hail from and to. This project seeks to demonstrate the realities that youth immigrants face: the doubts, aspirations, complexity and humanity of their experience.
'Building up strong family relationships after being separated for a long time is complicated,' says KARINA. Karina was raised by her grandmother in El Salvador and didn't meet her biological mother until she was 10. As a result, Karina (now 18) doesn't have as strong a maternal connection with her mother as with the family she left behind. This probl