Our Impact — ICARE

A decade of fighting for immigrant children in New York City

Since 2014, ICARE has responded to crisis affecting immigrant youth in NYC, building the infrastructure, securing public funding, and ensuring children are not left to face the immigration system alone.

Read our 2025 Annual Report

14,000+

children screened for legal relief

children secured protection to stay in the U.S.

1,500+

3,000+

children represented by ICARE attorneys

in public funding secured for immigrant youth legal services

$42M+

Without a lawyer, a child has just a 15% chance of winning their deportation case. With ICARE supported representation, that rate jumps to over 90%.

ICARE responds when it matters most.

Every time the federal government has moved to strip protections from immigrant youth in New York, ICARE has mobilized its coalition to respond.

2024-2026

ICARE launched a Legal Service Referral Program to connect immigrant youth with the legal support they need. This program ensures that unaccompanied minors facing deportation are matched with trusted legal service providers who specialize in immigration and family law. By streamlining the referral process, ICARE helps young immigrants access timely, high-quality legal assistance, increasing their chances of securing protections and navigating the legal system with support at every step.
In partnership with Queens Family Court, ICARE launched a pilot program to expand access to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) for unaccompanied minors. This pilot offers young immigrants, who likely would’ve otherwise gone without legal assistance, the chance to have legal support throughout their process. ICARE attorneys provide limited scope services, while each young person is also assigned family counsel. This collaboration ensures continuous legal support in both family and immigration court, expediting SIJS filings and securing protections for immigrant youth.

2018

The government separated asylum seeking families at the U.S. southern border, rendering thousands of children unaccompanied and sending over 450 of them to detention facilities in New York. In response, ICARE represented each separated child to protect against deportation without a parent and partnered with the ACLU in its class action lawsuit in federal court to support efforts to track down and reunify every separated child with a family member.

2017

The government used a bad-faith reading of the law to deny thousands of applications by New Yorkers for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), an immigration benefit for children abused, abandoned or neglected by their own parents. In response, ICARE filed a class action suit in federal court, winning an injunction and restoring SIJS protection for over 6,600 class members in New York State. Its successful legal arguments were later borrowed in other states challenging the government’s policy and in 2020, the government voluntarily overturned its denial policy.

2014

The government placed 6,000 unaccompanied children in fast-track deportation proceedings in New York City, without providing them lawyers. In an emergency response, ICARE provided daily free legal screenings to any unrepresented child at the New York Immigration Court and secured $1M in public-private funding to fund new non-profit lawyers that could represent as many children as capacity allowed.