Immigrant Children's Advocacy

Maria Woltjen, Director of the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, describes how she founded a program to provide unaccompanied immigrant children with guardians ad litem. In 2005, nearly 8,000 unaccompanied immigrant children were taken into federal custody and many of these children had to face immigration judges without any legal aid. By working with multilingual law students, The Center pairs advocates with immigrant and refugee children to ensure the child's welfare is represented, not the interests of traffickers or smugglers.