Silenced by the Screen: How Video “Efficiency” Denies Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Real Legal Advocacy

Imagine a 13-year-old who has just arrived in the United States after fleeing violence. She has crossed multiple borders, survived a dangerous journey, and is now sitting in a government shelter trying to understand what will happen next. Soon, she will face a legal system that will determine whether she can remain in our country or be returned to the danger she fled. But before that process can even begin, she must first understand her rights in this new country.

For years, nonprofit legal advocates have met with unaccompanied immigrant children in person to explain the immigration process and answer their questions. These sessions, known as “Know Your Rights” orientations, are often the first time a child learns how the immigration system works and what protections might exist for them. Advocates explain concepts that would be complicated even for adults: Court hearings, legal rights, forms of protection, and the roles of immigration judges, prosecutors, and attorneys. Children can ask questions, clarify what they do not understand, and begin to make sense of the complex process they are about to enter.

But now, a new proposal from the Trump administration would require many of these orientations to be delivered through prerecorded videos or remote virtual sessions. To policymakers, this may sound efficient. But from my perspective as a psychologist, it is a serious mistake.

First, children understand and communicate differently from adults. Their ability to process complex information develops gradually across childhood and adolescence. Young people need explanations tailored to their developmental stage, time to process what they hear, and opportunities to ask questions. Understanding emerges through conversation.

A prerecorded video cannot adjust its language when a child is confused. It cannot pause when a child needs clarification. It cannot answer questions. Even live conversations over videoconference have limits. Children often communicate confusion through subtle facial expressions, body language, and hesitation speaking. These cues are much harder to see through a screen, especially in chaotic shelter settings. Children very well may leave these conversations without understanding, even if they appear to.

Second, trauma shapes how children process information. Many unaccompanied children have experienced profound adversity. Some have fled gang violence, abuse, or persecution. Others have endured dangerous migration journeys marked by fear, deprivation, and exploitation. Trauma can affect memory, concentration, and emotion regulation. When children feel overwhelmed or unsafe, absorbing complex information becomes much harder. Meeting in-person with a legal advocate experienced in trauma-informed practice allows children to ask questions, move at their own pace, and gradually share their experiences.

A video or remote session cannot reliably respond to a child’s confusion, distress, or fear. When children become overwhelmed, they may shut down or disengage. In person, an advocate can slow the conversation and provide reassurance. Through a screen, that kind of support is much harder to deliver.

Third, supportive relationships with adults are one of the strongest protective factors for children facing adversity. Research on resilience consistently shows that children navigate hardship more successfully when they have consistent caring adults who help them understand what is happening around them. For unaccompanied immigrant children, legal advocates often become those adults at a critical moment. Through in-person orientations, advocates help children make sense of the legal process and choices that will shape their future. These relationships are central to how children understand what is happening.

Moving orientations onto screens and transferring thousands of children’s cases to a new contractor risks abruptly disrupting relationships that have already formed between children and legal advocates. For children navigating an unfamiliar and daunting legal process, losing those trusted adults can deepen confusion and distress.

Screen-based orientations ignore basic realities of child development.

Anyone who works with children knows this. Children ask questions. They ask the same question again in a new way. They pause when something is confusing. They cower when something is frightening. They pretend to understand something when they do not trust the person speaking to them. They may later ask a person they do trust, if such a person exists. They often need many explanations in many different ways before they fully understand.

Adults rely on subtle cues to communicate effectively with children that are much harder to notice through a screen. Communication with children is interactive. It requires conversation, clarification, and reassurance from a caring, trusted adult.

Policies affecting vulnerable children should reflect what we know about child development: Children build trust, learn, and communicate through ongoing, stable, in-person relationships.

If we truly want children to understand their rights and participate meaningfully in the legal process that will determine their futures, the Department of Health and Human Services should revise its proposal and remove the mandate for video-based Know Your Rights orientations.

Replacing in-person conversations with screens does not make the system more efficient. It makes the system far less fair to the children it is supposed to protect.

I urge each person in the United States reading this to contact their Members of Congress to tell them: Immigrant kids need legal advocates by their side. Visit treatkidslikekids.org for more information and a sample call script.

Sara Buckingham, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a Licensed Psychologist. Her work examines the intersection of immigration and mental health. She is the author of Mental Health Assessment with Children and Adolescents: An Integrated Clinical, Community, and Cultural Psychology Framework (2026). A long-time member of the Global Alliance of Behavioral Health and Social Justice, Dr. Buckingham currently serves as a Director at Large on the Board of Directors and is a frequent contributor and reviewer for the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (AJO). She is deeply committed to community-engaged research and policy advocacy in the pursuit of equity and liberation.

The views expressed in the Perspectives Series are those of the author and are not written by the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice.