A Set of Borders to Cross

Most of the children in the shelters come from Central America. Children from Mexico who are caught at the border are immediately returned, though the ones who make it into the United States may end up in shelters if they are caught by immigration authorities. In the past two years, the shelter system across the Southwest has grown to 21 from five. Most are in Texas.

Some, like Texas Sheltered Care in Nixon, are plush worlds compared with the living conditions the juveniles left behind. The shelter in Nixon offers classes in English, math, carpentry and computer skills. The children get round - the - clock supervision, plus counseling, medical care and recreation -- even yoga classes and outings to bowling alleys or local football game pep rallies.

The shelter's walls are decorated with colorful posters depicting the seasons and inspirational sayings in English and Spanish. Large flags on the wall announce the residents' home countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil. A courtyard garden, tended by the children, is dotted with wooden crosses they made to memorialize loved ones who died back home -- part of the grief counseling offered by one social worker. They get bused weekly to the local swimming pool, once a whites-only facility. Today it is an illegal-immigrants-only pool and is owned by Texas Sheltered Care.

Mostly, though, the children wait, hoping social workers can cajole their parents or other kin to claim them before Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers can persuade an immigration judge to deport them.

"We're a social service agency. We aren't law enforcement," said Maureen Dunn, director of HHS's Division of Unaccompanied Children's Services, which runs the shelters. "We want to make sure kids are safe and well cared for and that they are safely reunified."

Dunn's agency was created in 2004 as the result of a lawsuit settled on behalf of immigrant children. Before the ruling, children generally were sent to juvenile detention centers to await deportation. Now, the agency's goal is to reunite unaccompanied immigrant children with their parents or close relatives. If that occurs, the children are then ordered to appear in an immigration court for a hearing that might lead to their deportation. But no one knows how many keep that court date or how many just melt into the country's underground world of undocumented immigrants.

"It's kind of a gaping hole in the new wall that's supposedly going up against illegal immigration," said Don Barnett, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter borders and immigration controls.

To get custody of their children, many of these parents must appear in person. While HHS will not turn them in, many fear capture at Border Patrol checkpoints on highways and in airports, or by the increasing number of local police agencies that have been given the power to enforce immigration laws. Some immigrants also just don't believe the assurances of social workers that they are not an arm of la migra .

"I told them 'No, this is like a school, there are no police here,' " Iraheta said, describing how he tried to reassure his parents and persuade them to claim him. "But they're scared to come get me; they don't have the courage."

Many children languish in shelters for weeks, attending immigration court hearings periodically, until a judge issues a deadline for reunification or a deportation order.

"I feel sorry for any child that doesn't get reunified, especially if it's [with] the parents or siblings," said Jose Munoz, one of the Nixon caseworkers. "Some of it is due to being undocumented, and some of it is they're scared to travel. . . . What happens is that it becomes an emotional roller coaster for the child."

Nelvin Johac Lara Pineda, 17, left Honduras with one goal: Get to the United States, get a job, and send money home because his parents and five younger siblings are being threatened with eviction from their small home.