U.S. Border Crisis Children's Relief Fund

November 2022

Thanks to donors like you, Save the Children has provided humanitarian assistance for children and families seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border since 2014, prioritizing programming for families traveling with children, with a special focus on the youngest children, pregnant women and new mothers, and children with special needs. Today, we are one of the only international organizations responding to this crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, which is critical to addressing migration issues.

On the U.S. side, we are strengthening the capacity of shelters and communities to protect children and families and address their immediate physical and emotional needs. We provide a full complement of support to a network of 30-plus shelter and local partners that includes supplies, funds, child protection programming, and capacity-building training.

As of October, we had also provided $100 cash cards to over 2,200 asylum-seeking families traveling to their destination in the U.S. this year through our Cash on the Move program. The cards help families pay for food, accommodations, hygiene items and other essentials for a safe journey and give them the dignity of discretion in spending. The most vulnerable families – usually families with very young children and those traveling by bus – are prioritized.

We also advocate for the rights and humane treatment of children and families and their right to seek asylum. We have also worked closely with the Family Reunification Task Force, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the administration to ensure that unaccompanied children can be reunited with families quickly and receive the protections and services they deserve.

Over the past year, our partners across the border region have reached:

• 182,000 people (including 77,000 children) in Arizona

• 234,000 people (including over 79,000 children) in California

• 24,000 people (including over 6,800 children) in New Mexico

• 967,000 people (including over 375,000 children) in Texas

With the support of donors like you, we are committed to sustaining and scaling up our presence along the U.S. southern border in 2023.

Links:

• Save the Children - U.S. Border Crisis