Faith groups: More foster families needed to care for children coming to US alone

HOMESTEAD, Florida (AP):

Snuggling on the sofa across from the Christmas tree, Sol proudly showed off the dog her foster parents gave her for earning all A’s even though she crossed the southern US border knowing very little English.

“They helped me a lot,” said the 14-year-old eighth grader. Then she blushed, hid her face in Cosmo’s fur, and added in Spanish, “Oooh, I said that English!”

Sol – who is from Argentina – is among tens of thousands of children who arrive in the United States without a parent, during a huge surge in immigrants that’s prompting congressional debate to change asylum laws.

Faith and community groups across the country are trying to recruit many more foster families to help move the children from overwhelmed government facilities. US authorities encountered nearly 140,000 unaccompanied minors at the border with Mexico in fiscal year 2023, according to US Customs and Border Protection. Almost 10,000 are still in custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to its latest data.

“It’s amazing the quantity of children who are coming,” said Mónica Farías, who leads the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami. “We’re actively recruiting parents.”

Programme leaders have been going to churches and other community organisations every weekend to find more families like Andy and Caroline Hazelton, Sol’s foster parents.

Over the past four years, the Hazeltons – a couple in their early 30s living in a Miami suburb, with three biological daughters ages eight, six and almost two – have fostered five migrant minors for several months and more for shorter periods. Two teens were from Afghanistan, but most came from Central America.

“Our faith inspired us,” Andy Hazelton said, adding they felt the need to respond to the Gospel exhortation of helping others as one would help Jesus when they heard about families being separated at the border.

Like other foster families, the Hazeltons say they focus not on the often stridently divisive politics of immigration, but simply on assisting children in need. A globe ornament on their living room Christmas tree is marked with dots for the birthplaces of each family member.

“Every Christmas we have new kids in our home,” Caroline Hazelton said, adding that even the Muslim Afghan teens, who had never seen a stocking bulging with presents, quickly joined the festivities.

Like most youths in these programmes, those boys were eventually reunited with their birth family – the mother hugged Caroline for 10 minutes, sobbing in gratefulness. With Sol, whose father has gone missing on the journey across the desert, and other children without relatives in the United States, foster families’ commitments can last years.

As Sol packed her school lunch in a ‘Stranger Things’ bag under Cosmo’s watchful eyes, the Hazeltons said they would be happy to have her stay forever and already refer to their four daughters.

Regardless of the length of stay, foster parents say they need to give the children enough stability to get comfortable with unfamiliar US customs – from air conditioning to strict school routines – and to learn more English.