Raquel & Javier

Leaving their home in Honduras had not been hard. Home was just an unhappy place where there wasn’t enough to eat, and where their mother spent the money their father sent them on drink and bad people. The drink made her angry, but it also gave her a bad aim. It was easier to dodge the beatings when she was drunk.

The neighborhood was no safer. Raquel was 13 years old, and her brother was three years younger. She knew it was only a matter of time before the gangs came for her and Javier, too, just as they had for so many of their classmates.

But leaving Boston would be hard. It hadn’t even been two years since they arrived, yet the city had become home in a way Honduras never was. Javier could sleep now without nightmares, Raquel had discovered a talent for math, and their father made sure they had enough school supplies and clothes for Boston weather.

“Why do we have to go back?” Javier asked her again while they waited to speak to their lawyer. “Why can’t we stay here?”

Raquel stood by the window, looking out at the gray, sullen sky. Snow was coming, and Javier had lost his gloves again. He was always losing his gloves.

“I already told you,” she said patiently. “Papi isn’t allowed to live here anymore. They’re sending him back. You wouldn’t want him to be alone, would you?”

“No, but—”

“Papi has to go back,” she repeated. “And we have to go with him.”

A Pathway to Hope.

In 1990, Congress created the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status to provide a path to legal residency for undocumented minors who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by one or both parents and who cannot return safely to their home country. It does not grant legal status, but it allows recipients to apply for a visa to become lawful permanent residents (green card) and obtain a work permit.

Raquel and Javier are both eligible for SIJ status and are clients of ILJ affiliate New England Justice for Our Neighbors (New England JFON). Valerie Napier, legal director for their Pathway to Hope program for unaccompanied and other vulnerable immigrant children, has been working for the better part of a year to build the siblings’ case—a very strong one, too—so they could stay in Boston.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she says. “They are both amazing children who have survived years of trauma to finally arrive at a happy, stable place, and then ICE suddenly takes their father into custody.”

Valerie recounts the siblings’ first master calendar hearing, when Raquel, bright and curious, continually asked questions about the courthouse and how everything worked. She then charmed the judge with the full rundown of her favorite classes and activities in school.

“Raquel had everyone in the courtroom laughing,” remembers Valerie fondly. “And then she told them that her dream was to become a nurse someday.” 

Since their father’s detention, Valerie and her staff have met repeatedly with Raquel and Javier to discuss their options. They have an aunt in the region who is eager to take them in so they can complete the SIJ process to eventually gain permanent residency.

It’s not an uncommon solution, says Valerie.

“We’ve had many, many cases,” she explains, “where the client has designated a family member or friend and made it very clear to us that if something were to happen to them, then they would like this person to take custody of the children so they can remain safely in the U.S.”

Raquel’s father, however, does not want his family to be separated ever again and insists they also return to Honduras. When he is deported, his children will, in a sense, also be deported and must leave behind the new life they created here.

A long tradition of serving immigrant youth.

“Since our beginning in 2013, we have served thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children,” says New England JFON Executive Director Jenna Andelman. “But the Pathway to Hope program has greatly expanded our capacity to take on these children as clients and more than doubled our service area for them.”

New England JFON attorneys represent unaccompanied children not only in Greater Boston but throughout Massachusetts. So far in 2025, attorneys and staff have worked with 220 children—some as young as 4 years old—to help them obtain legal status and remain lawfully in the United States.

Jenna estimates that currently 40% of all New England JFON clients are unaccompanied children.

The Deportation Agenda expands to target children.

It takes years for SIJ petitioners to gain permanent residency in the United States, largely because of a tremendous backlog of cases. But once applicants obtained SIJ classification—already an arduous process—they were allowed to work and, more significantly, were protected from deportation proceedings. 

That changed when Trump took office in January and began discarding long-established protections for children and young people. This past April, the administration stopped granting deferred action designations and instead actively began deporting SIJ status holders.

In October 2025, the case of a 16-year-old Bronx high school student with SIJ status made national news when he was arrested and detained on his way to a routine immigration check-in. A federal judge sided with his legal team, and the boy was released, although his fate in this country remains uncertain.

From January to mid-October of 2025, ICE has arrested some 2,600 children younger than 18 across the country. Meanwhile, immigration advocates and organizations such as the ACLU continue to fight these abrupt and unjust changes to SIJ status in federal court. 

The mission endures.

With a friendly state court and understanding federal immigration judges, it may seem safer for immigrants in Massachusetts than elsewhere in the country. Yet ICE has acted with brutality here, too, Jenna reminds us, and fear pervades the immigrant communities of Massachusetts just as it does in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere.

“In May alone,” says Jenna, “ICE arrested 1,500 immigrants in the state. The focus on what the administration has labeled a ‘sanctuary state’ has persisted, and we now expect raids over the Christmas holiday.”

Nevertheless, immigrant youth—and all of New England JFON’s clients—are still counting on them to receive the expert, compassionate, and free legal representation they need. New England JFON, in turn, continues to hold legal clinics and recently hired another attorney to help with the increased caseload—despite concerns about precarious funding.  

“Whatever happens, we’ll find a way,” says Jenna. “We always do.”

“It’s because of the children we represent,” Valerie affirms. “So many of them have experienced severe, even life-threatening, trauma in their young lives. Knowing that we can help them find a path to legal status in the United States—even if it’s far off in the future—is extremely rewarding.

“I’ve been practicing immigration law for 14 years,” she adds, “and nothing has been as interesting and rewarding as working with these children.”