Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

Kind partners with law firms and corporations to match unaccompanied children with pro bono attorneys to ensure no child appears in immigration court without high quality representation. The compassion and dedication of kind's volunteer attorneys make our work possible and our collective efforts have changed the lives of more than 9,476 at-risk children. Together with our partners, we have helped those children find safety and freedom from violence, abuse, and persecution. Most of kind's clients are fleeing some of the most dangerous countries and conditions in the world. As of december 2018, kind has served more than 18,594 unaccompanied children. It has also trained over 29,996 attorneys.

Regional work-kind's "regional," central america/mexico focuses on child migration throughout the central america - mexico region. Kind has four regional initiatives that aim to address root causes of migration, educate the public about child migration in the region, and ensure access to protection for migrant children. Kind's regional initiatives include (1) central american child return and reintegration project - providing comprehensive support to migrant children repatriated to guatemala and honduras to help them reintegrate into their communities, and to help them and their siblings access support services and educational and employment opportunities that allow them to remain in their countries of origin (2) gender and migration initiative providing sexual and gender based violence prevention programming for boys and girls, and for some teachers, in gutaemala and honduras, and providing leadership and economic empowerment training and opportunities for girls; (3) cross border family reunification and protection initiative providing assistance to children ...

Public outreach & education-kind continued its legislative and administration advocacy work to ensure that law, policy, and practice advances the protection of unaccompanied children in the united states. Kind worked throughout 2018 to ensure that all unaccompanied children arriving at the u.s. border were able to access to humanitarian protection through timely but fair immigration proceedings and by helping provide pro bono representation to the children. Kind also worked to gain support for a greater commmitment to the safe repatriation and reintegration of children returning to their home countries alone, to educate stakeholders about the root causes of these children's plight and ways to address them, to secure access to counsel and to ensure adequate funding for unaccompanied children's services.