A study designed to assess the needs of unaccompanied minors living in the New York City metropolitan area found that students, many of whom are English-language learners, face an array of obstacles to enrolling in school and receiving an education free from discrimination.
The report from the Vera Institute of Justice and the Fordham University Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice explored the experiences of 23 youths who migrated to the United States without parents or guardians and had arrived between three months and five years prior to the study.
School-age participants reported difficulty trying to register at local schools, including instances when they were redirected to other schools, such as international schools in other boroughs, because there was not enough support available for ELL students, the authors write.
