Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

KIND’s work in the region began with the Guatemalan Child Return and Reintegration Project (GCRRP), a unique initiative that ensures that unaccompanied children, who leave the United States because they are voluntarily returning home or because they have been ordered deported, are sent back to a safe place where they can access vital services In 2016, KIND expanded this work to include children returning to Honduras. Returning children struggle to re-enroll in school, resettle into their families and communities, overcome trauma they may have experienced during migration, and make a plan for a safer or brighter future. The Child Migrant Return and Reintegration Project (CMRRP), has served more than 300 returning migrant children and their families. KIND and its partners have helped children by ensuring there is coordination between their caregivers in the US and their families upon return, that they return to their communities safely, and that they receive reintegration services such as family reunification support, skills training, counseling, medical and mental health services, and help with school enrollment and scholarships. KIND’s model has had a less than 5% remigration rate, to the US or Mexico since 2015. Though modest in scale, KIND’s CMRRP serves as a successful model to governments, inter- governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations planning to develop or engage in reintegration services. Most recently, KIND launched the Central America Family Separation & Reunification Project in summer 2018 to provide a transnational response to complex cases which came as a result of the Family Separation crisis of 2018. Through this project KIND:
• assists deported parents in locating and establishing contact with their children and their children’s attorney
• contacts deported parents to determine preferences regarding reunification with their children and communicates parental preferences to the government pursuant to the family separation Ms. L litigation
• conducts screening of parents for protection needs and refers parents for legal representation as needed
• expedites repatriation in cases of the youngest separated children
• facilitates and provides logistical support for reunification of returning separated children with their parents
• provides ongoing psychosocial support to reunified separated families in Central America to heal familial bonds


KIND also works regionally with their Sexual and Gender Based Violence Initiative. While there has been increased attention to child migration from Central America, insufficient attention has been paid to the specific needs and experiences of unaccompanied girls who make the perilous journey to the United States. To respond to the needs of this uniquely vulnerable group, in 2015 KIND launched its Gender and Migration Initiatives (GMI), a new programming area focused on preventing and addressing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against migrant children. The GMI combines research, policy advocacy, and programming to promote the rights and protection of migrant children, including survivors of SGBV, in all phases of their migration journey. In 2016, KIND published two reports that show how sexual and gender-based violence, combined with lack of access to justice and protection, drives the forced migration of girls and LGBTI children and youth from Central America. In addition to our research, GMI partners with organizations in Guatemala to engage potential and returning migrant children in SGBV prevention programming. Our programming partners in Guatemala are Asociación Pop No’j, Colectivo Vida Digna, and ECAP.
In 2018 the GMI piloted SGBV prevention workshops with migrant youth in the Baltimore, and Washington DC areas, and we are currently working with Casa Alianza Honduras to expand this programming to Honduras in 2019.

KIND helps to increase awareness among policymakers and the public about the rights and needs of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children. Key elements of KIND’s communications strategy include working to broaden and deepen our social media presence and foster greater engagement with our supporters; educating the public that the majority of unaccompanied children are potential refugees and should receive full access to due process and protections that they need and deserve as children; and creating a KIND Children’s Speaker’s Bureau that will provide children with opportunities to tell their stories however they choose: on our website/social media, via speaking engagements, in the media, and to policymakers.

In Washington, DC, KIND educates policymakers in the Administration and Congress on the critical need for legal representation of unaccompanied children and child survivors of mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking—as well as how to strategically leverage the extraordinary response from the private sector legal community to help render the system more efficient and effective.

We are also working to prevent erosion of existing protections for unaccompanied children. The 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) ensures that children who arrive at our border alone receive full and fair access to the protections available to them under U.S. law and to basic due process protections. These protections have been under attack since the child migration crisis began in the summer of 2014. KIND successfully worked with our coalition partners to educate lawmakers about the critical importance of the TVPRA and to offer pragmatic solutions to the crisis that could help achieve orderly migration while at the same time preserving child protection.

In 2016, KIND expanded its legal services to include social services to better address the needs of vulnerable clients. KIND has increased its capacity to provide trauma-informed care and facilitate critical social services, including medical, mental health, and crisis intervention, for our child clients and their families to ensure they can effectively move forward with their legal cases and regain mental health and stability. KIND now maintains at least one full-time Social Services Coordinator (SSC) in each of our ten field offices. SSC's in each office work with KIND’s child clients and their families to identify needs and gaps in services, and assist families in accessing services related to education, health, mental health, housing, mediation, and child care.