For some undocumented minors living in Philadelphia, making it to the United States is just one step in a long journey to safety and security
By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Published March 1, 2026
For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guatemala, the southern border of the United States marks the line between life and death. Ana and Jonathan, both clients of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania (HIAS PA), a local humanitarian nonprofit that provides legal services to low-income immigrants in the state, now live in Philadelphia — but with looming uncertainty.
Ana’s journey began in 2019. Her mother wanted to reunite with Ana’s father, who had left Brazil for Philadelphia a few years earlier for work. Hard-pressed for money, Ana’s mother applied for visas and was denied. Instead of taking the U.S. government’s no for an answer, she hired a “coyote,” or guide, to smuggle her and Ana into America. Despite a difficult relationship with her parents, Ana, then 12, had no choice but to accompany her mother.
For Jonathan, gang violence and death threats forced him to leave his homeland. His mother, already living in Philadelphia, was unable to obtain a visa for him and hired a coyote to take him across the border in 2024.
Thus, Ana and Jonathan arrived without legal documents. They’re hardly alone in that status. Save The Children, a global nonprofit that works to improve the lives of children, reported that in 2022, the “Department of Health and Human Services received a record 128,904 unaccompanied, undocumented minors, up from 122,731 in the prior year.”
Even with coyotes guiding them, Ana and Jonathan had close calls. “Robbers shot at our group in Mexico until they were chased off,” Jonathan says.
Ana and her mom faced a different danger. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehended them on Feb. 6, 2019. Soon after reaching the U.S., they were held in a detention facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. “Sixty of us — men, women and kids — lived together in the same big room,” Ana says. “We slept on the floor. They only gave us those aluminum blankets. I got a bad case of chicken pox. My mom went into diabetic crisis because of bad food and too little insulin. She was in the hospital for four days. I had to stay in that big room the whole time.”
About three months after ICE apprehended them, Ana and her mother were released to Ana’s paternal aunt, who is a permanent U.S. resident living in Philly. She signed a contract to sponsor them, agreeing to support them, if necessary, so they wouldn’t need public assistance.
Unaccompanied minors — those who enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian — once detained by Customs and Border Protection, are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. ORR then sends them to one of its many shelters, depending on where bed space is available, says Stephanie Lubert, a managing attorney at HIAS PA.
