Kim McRae, Ahu’s caseworker from Commonwealth Catholic Charities, predicted the butchering of her client’s name, which is correctly pronounced “tong.” Unaccompanied refugee minors are regulars at the Henrico County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court; bailiffs and judges sometimes trip over their names.

On this December morning, 15-year-old Ahu is joined by his brother, 18-year-old Aung Naing, who serves as his interpreter during the hearing; the boys’ foster mother, Janey Neff, and her 4-year-old daughter, Lily; attorney Theresa Rhinehardt; and McRae.

They’re here for a 75-day review, three months after Ahu arrived in the United States from a refugee camp in Malaysia. Periodic check-ins with the court are routine for refugee minors, who are under the custody of Commonwealth Catholic Charities.

Lily, squirming in her pink jeans, makes a princess’ eyebrows light green in a coloring book. Judge Sharon Breeden Will fills out paperwork, and the brothers, their hair a shade longer than a couple months ago, sit at a table facing the judge. These hearings are closed to the public, and a reporter is allowed there only with the permission of Ahu and the other individuals present.

The judge asks a few questions, mostly about school and home life, and whether Aung and Ahu have contact with anyone in their homeland of Myanmar. She pauses to fill out more paperwork.

Since Ahu is under 16, he has to come to court every six months, following this 75-day check-in. A few more questions, a couple of comments from Janey, a date set for Ahu’s next visit, and the hearing’s over in less than 30 minutes.

Entering the System

Red tape is the name of the game when an underage refugee comes to the United States unaccompanied by a relative.

Commonwealth Catholic Charities, based in Henrico County’s West End, has provided foster care for Richmond-area minor refugees since 1982. Many are orphans or are separated from their parents because of war or persecution. They are all under the custody of CCC and are not available for adoption, because in most cases parental rights cannot be surrendered.

Aung and Ahu were raised by their grandmother in Hakha (alternately spelled Haka), Myanmar, where she still lives; their father moved to India years ago and is not in contact with the boys, and their mother died when they were young.

Although their experiences as refugees were a year apart — Aung arrived at a camp in Malaysia in 2006, and Ahu came in 2007 — their path through bureaucracy has been similar.

Ahu and Aung, like many minors fleeing a hostile country, were brought to a United Nations refugee camp, in their case outside Kuala Lumpur. Although it can be highly risky for refugees to leave their camp in Malaysia because of the threat of deportation, the boys both went to the local UN office to start the process of leaving the country.

There, mental-health professionals assessed the boys to see if they met the criteria to be called refugees, the first step in receiving assistance to get to another country. According to McRae, helping unaccompanied youths under 18 is the UN’s highest priority. Refugee status is granted if a person left his home country to escape persecution related to race, religion, nationality, group or politics.

Once the UN designated Aung and Ahu refugees, the United States government entered the picture. The State Department decides how many refugees can enter the country during the year, and from which countries. Sheila Kleff, a social worker at Commonwealth Catholic Charities since 1982, notes that the numbers and geography of unaccompanied refugee minors have shifted over the years, depending on the State Department’s priorities. Other agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — are involved in the approval process for some children, depending on their country of origin.

After a child has permission to enter the country, the State Department refers him to one of two nongovernmental organizations — Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Aung went through the Catholic organization, which referred him to Commonwealth Catholic Charities in Richmond. Young refugees can be placed all over the country, but decisions are usually based on availability of foster homes and geographical connections (for instance, if other children from the same country are in one place, others may follow).

Richmond saw an influx of Cambodian refugees in the early ’80s, Sudanese and Ethiopian children in the late 1990s, and in recent years, Afghanis, Haitians and Somalians have arrived. Children from Myanmar — mostly coming from camps in Thailand or Malaysia — make up the latest wave of refugees. At the end of November, CCC had custody of 49 unaccompanied refugee minors.

A local placement committee decides whether it has a foster home where a child can be placed — if so, committee members notify the national Catholic agency that the child can come. This is what happened with Aung, and once he got to the United States, he and the CCC worked to bring Ahu to Richmond through the same channels.

Sometimes, McRae notes, it can take weeks or months for a child to arrive, even after permission has been granted. Unaccompanied refugee minors must take a battery of medical tests; they also receive an employment-authorization card (which serves primarily as a form of ID) and the I-94 form, an arrival-departure record.  

Once the child is in the United States, he must go to juvenile court to address “permanence goals,” an aspect of the foster-care system required by the court. Although most American children in the system have a stated goal to eventually return home or live with a relative, unaccompanied refugee minors don’t have that option. They have two other goals: independent living or permanent foster care, in which a foster family agrees to keep the child in their home until he opts to live independently or ages out of care at 21. Although most children live with a family, others go to group homes or residential treatment facilities if the case warrants.

Also on the agenda within the first day or two of arrival are more medical tests (usually involving vaccinations), obtaining a Social Security card and registering for school. Somewhere in there, the new U.S. resident grabs some food and sleep.

Becoming an Adult

At 18, Aung no longer goes to juvenile-court hearings, and if he wanted to, he could leave the care of the Neffs and live independently, as some of CCC’s refugees do. He can remain in the foster-care system, however, until he’s 21 — an opportunity available to him because he arrived here as a minor. McRae says some refugees are in a race to cross the ocean, because if they turn 18 before arriving in the United States, it’s much more difficult to get here, since they are legally adults.    

After a year in the country, unaccompanied refugee minors can apply for permanent residency, which means more paperwork and red tape. Aung, who came to Richmond in September 2007, just started this process in the fall. It could take years for him to get his permanent resident status, called a green card, McRae says. “They reject [applicants] for the smallest thing,” she notes. “A lot of our kids print their name instead of signing” — a flub that can cost them time. Once they do get their green cards, they can apply to be American citizens after five years in the country, another lengthy trail of paperwork.

The path from refugee to citizen comes with twists, bumps and occasional detours, but Kleff says most of her kids’ stories end happily, as she glances at framed photos of smiling Sudanese “lost boys” wearing caps and gowns on graduation day.

Next month: Life in Myanmar.

The Complete Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part8, Part9