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Reviewed by:
  • Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests by Lauren Heidbrink
  • Irasema Coronado
Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests. By Lauren Heidbrink. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p. 196, $24.95.

From an anthropological perspective Lauren Heidbrink has crafted a deeply insightful, humane, and poignant book depicting the plight of immigrant children coming to the US from Central America who find themselves in detention facilities and in legal limbo. This book argues that children are not merely passive recipients of the law and institutional practices but actively shape legal discourses on migration and kinship in their everyday negotiations of institutional and community networks. By failing to recognize the legal personhood and social agency of unaccompanied children, the state undermines the rights of children and compromises their pursuit of justice (33).

Heidbrink sets the stage for this book by focusing on the arrival of an "unaccompanied alien child," Elián González, whose Cuban mother perished at sea and whose father demanded that the U.S. Government allow him to take his son back to Cuba. The U.S. and Cuban Governments, Elián's family in Miami, and his father were involved in a major battle over the "best interests of the child." Subsequently, Elián went back to Cuba with his father. Elián is not the first child to arrive alone on U.S. shores; however, recent unaccompanied alien children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador do not receive the same fanfare as Elián. Furthermore, law enforcement officers in the U.S. see these children as [End Page 463] delinquents and criminals, and human rights organizations see them as victims. Heidbrink notes that the United States has admitted thousands of children over time: the 1940 evacuation of British children; Operation Peter Pan, where over 14,000 Cuban children were admitted into the U.S.; and Operation Babylift, whereby 2,500 Vietnamese children were evacuated and placed in American adoption agencies. Political circumstances dictate US policy vis-à-vis the resettlement of children; hence, in some instances, the US government feels justified in intervening in the lives of children from some countries, but not others.

Though it is difficult to find accurate data on the number of children migrating into the U.S., the author estimates 500,000 immigrant children enter the U.S. each year, and 45,000 migrate from Central America. Children might enter the U.S. with a legal visa and overstay, or they might be smuggled through ports of entry with fraudulent documents. Of the 100,000 unaccompanied minors apprehended yearly by U.S. government officials, approximately 6,000-8,000 enter into the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Mexican and Canadian children are removed within 72 hours of detention in order to comply with the Contiguous Territories Agreement. Approximately 85% of all children under the care of ORR come from the Northern Triangle, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

This ethnography examines the contradictory nature of how and when children are seen and of which children remain invisible (10). It focuses on a largely invisible population of unauthorized migrant children in highly restrictive and largely inaccessible spaces, such as immigration detention facilities, border stations, immigration and family courts, and underground communities.

One of the greatest strengths of this manuscript is the methodology. Heidbrink conducted research in three federal detention facilities, an important achievement because very few people are allowed inside the facilities. She surveyed 82 children and interviewed nearly 250 stakeholders, including government officials, lawyers, Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, and policymakers, including those from El Salvador and Mexico. Additionally, ORR approved the study that allowed for anonymity, and detention facility staff were interviewed. She also reviewed institutional paperwork, policies and procedures. Heidbrink conducted interviews with members of the Guatemalan community in Maryland and Illinois and met with families in El Salvador, whose children were in detention in the U.S.

Heidbrink allows for the voices of the youth that she interviewed to permeate the book, rendering very in-depth, poignant, emotionally-charged interviews. Chapter 4 traces the life...

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