Cecilia Menjívar holds the Dorothy L. Meier Chair and is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. Her research focuses on the effects of immigration law on immigrants’ lives, including family dynamics and separations, gender, social networks, religious participation, and belonging. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014) and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017).Krista M. Perreira (BA, Pomona College 1991; Ph.D. UC Berkeley, 1999) is professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr Perreira has over 20 years of research experience focused on understanding and improving the well-being of immigrant and Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States.

• 1. Introduction 2. Unaccompanied minors from the Northern Central American countries in the migrant stream: social differentials and institutional contexts 3. Re-conceptualising agency in migrant children from Central America and Mexico 4. Deportation as a sacrament of the state: the religious instruction of contracted chaplains in U.S. detention facilities 5. Integration of unaccompanied migrant youth in the United States: a call for research 6. Best interests, durable solutions and belonging: policy discourses shaping the futures of unaccompanied migrant and refugee minors coming of age in Europe 7. Outsourcing the ‘best interests’ of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the era of austerity 8. Better off without parents? Legal and ethical questions concerning refugee children in Germany

Cecilia Menjívar holds the Dorothy L. Meier Chair and is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. Her research focuses on the effects of immigration law on immigrants’ lives, including family dynamics and separations, gender, social networks, religious participation, and belonging. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014) and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017).Krista M. Perreira (BA, Pomona College 1991; Ph.D. UC Berkeley, 1999) is professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr Perreira has over 20 years of research experience focused on understanding and improving the well-being of immigrant and Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States.

• 1. Introduction 2. Unaccompanied minors from the Northern Central American countries in the migrant stream: social differentials and institutional contexts 3. Re-conceptualising agency in migrant children from Central America and Mexico 4. Deportation as a sacrament of the state: the religious instruction of contracted chaplains in U.S. detention facilities 5. Integration of unaccompanied migrant youth in the United States: a call for research 6. Best interests, durable solutions and belonging: policy discourses shaping the futures of unaccompanied migrant and refugee minors coming of age in Europe 7. Outsourcing the ‘best interests’ of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the era of austerity 8. Better off without parents? Legal and ethical questions concerning refugee children in Germany

Cecilia Menjívar holds the Dorothy L. Meier Chair and is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. Her research focuses on the effects of immigration law on immigrants’ lives, including family dynamics and separations, gender, social networks, religious participation, and belonging. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014) and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017).Krista M. Perreira (BA, Pomona College 1991; Ph.D. UC Berkeley, 1999) is professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr Perreira has over 20 years of research experience focused on understanding and improving the well-being of immigrant and Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States.

• 1. Introduction 2. Unaccompanied minors from the Northern Central American countries in the migrant stream: social differentials and institutional contexts 3. Re-conceptualising agency in migrant children from Central America and Mexico 4. Deportation as a sacrament of the state: the religious instruction of contracted chaplains in U.S. detention facilities 5. Integration of unaccompanied migrant youth in the United States: a call for research 6. Best interests, durable solutions and belonging: policy discourses shaping the futures of unaccompanied migrant and refugee minors coming of age in Europe 7. Outsourcing the ‘best interests’ of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the era of austerity 8. Better off without parents? Legal and ethical questions concerning refugee children in Germany