Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

To make our vision and mission a reality, KIND has embraced the following priorities for the next two years.
Goal 1: Improve Migrant Children’s Access to Protection in the U.S.
Goal 2: Enhance Programming to Protect Children on the Move Globally
Goal 3: Address Root Causes of Migration
Goal 4: Demonstrate Leadership on Child Protection through Policy, Advocacy, and Awareness Raising

Goal 1: Improve Migrant Children’s Access to Protection in the U.S.
KIND’s goal is to improve access to protection in the United States for children on the move. Through direct services and advocacy, we will increase the rate of legal representation for unaccompanied children, enhance their stability and well-being by attaching them to critical social services, and promote and defend policies that provide those children with access to humanitarian and legal protection.

Goal 2: Enhance Programming to Protect Children on the Move Globally
KIND’s goal is to protect unaccompanied children migrating through Europe, Mexico, and Central America through our direct services and advocacy, and by leveraging our international networks. We provide children with information about their rights and legal process, and develop relationships with stakeholders—through trainings, technical assistance, presentations, technology, and social media—so that more children receive the legal information they need. KIND seeks to strengthen child protection systems and capacity in Central America, Mexico, and Europe by educating government officials and international organizations and building strategic partnerships to intensify advocacy and inform policy.

Goal 3: Address Root Causes of Migration
KIND’s goal is to address the root causes of child migration in Central America through strategic programming in high-migration communities on gender-based violence prevention and healthy relationships and gender norms; empowerment workshops for girls and young women; and helping local civil-society organizations advance pragmatic solutions, such as economic independence for Indigenous girls and youth. KIND advocates for and leverages U.S. federal aid to address the root causes of child migration and works with international and local NGOS and major corporations on cross-sector collaboratives to create opportunities for children and youth to remain and thrive in their home countries. We use our networks in Guatemala and Honduras to enhance the well-being of children at risk of migration and reduce the number of children forced to flee.

Goal 4: Demonstrate Leadership on Child Protection through Policy, Advocacy, and Awareness Raising
KIND’s goal is to be increasingly recognized by policymakers as a thought leader on the rights and needs of migrating children. We seek to strengthen our reputation as an expert in the field and effective global leader by demonstrating, through our innovative operational work, effective domestic and international approaches to immigration, and using our communications and fundraising platforms to share our clients’ experiences and raise awareness of the challenges they face and their successes when given a chance.

KIND is the only nonprofit organization in the country that focuses exclusively on unaccompanied immigrant children’s legal rights. With almost fifteen years of experience serving unaccompanied children, KIND is uniquely situated to address the needs of children as they move through countries of transit to their final destinations. As the largest provider of legal services to unaccompanied children in the U.S., KIND strives to provide continuity of care for children, starting from the time we encounter them, through their cross-border journeys, to providing legal and social services support in their final destinations. Since 2009, KIND has accepted referrals for more than 30,000 children to determine immigration legal needs. To meet significant and consistently increasing demand, KIND’s 380+ staff nationwide have built lasting relationships nationally with more than 730 partnering law firms, corporate legal departments, law schools, bar associations, and solo practitioners. In 2021 alone, KIND leveraged an estimated $100 million in pro bono legal services nationwide. Headquartered in Washington, DC, KIND operates fourteen field offices across the United States, and has programming in Mexico, Central America, and Europe.

KIND has succeeded in helping raise the visibility of the plight of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children, increased the legal representation resources available to them and helped thousands more children to access justice. However, the number of unaccompanied children fleeing danger and abuse in their home countries and seeking protection in the U.S. continues to grow. Despite the increased capacity of KIND and other legal service providers, thousands of children remain unrepresented in their deportation proceeding, thus losing their chance for a fair hearing and risking being returned to situations of danger. KIND will continue to strive to ensure that no child stands alone in immigration court. This i paired with this administrations attacks on the safeguards of children makes our work more crucial than ever.

Many of our child clients have suffered trauma, including sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), on their journeys to the U.S. All experience the stresses of adapting to new living situations, languages and schools. To help them access the medical, mental health, education and other critical services they need to fully participate in their immigration legal cases, KIND has added Social Services Coordinators (SSC) to all 10 offices, and is planning in continue to expand and grow in effectiveness and impact.

KIND's policy team provided technical assistance in the drafting of the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2016 legislation, which recognizes that the best way to ensure fair and just decisions for unaccompanied children in their immigration proceedings is by ensuring that they have counsel by their side. We need to ensure that more members of Congress, particularly those in leadership positions and ranking members of committees of jurisdiction, show support

Most of KIND's advocacy work to date has focused on policy at the federal level. Increasingly, however, states and localities are playing an active part in the protection of unaccompanied children. It is essential to the protection of our child clients that we educate and gain the support of officials at the state and local level as well as at the national level.

KIND partners with 14 law firms and over 20 non-profit organizations in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico to address the root causes of migration and build a regional response that protects children at all stages of their journeys toward safety and a productive life. But more resources are required to combat the violence, insecurity, extreme poverty that propel so many children to make the dangerous trip in search of safety and protection in the U.S.

In Guatemala, we demonstrated that young people can be helped to reunify safely with their families upon return. But thousands of children are being deported back to their home countries by Mexico and the U.S. and KIND is working to expand this work in Guatemala and to replicate it in Honduras and El Salvador to help more returning migrants.