DALLAS — Photos and images are worth a thousand words. Elisa O’Callaghan began visiting and advocating for migrants in 2018. She began by helping in Brownsville and then went to Matamoros.

“We all went in to teach art and English, basically,” said O’Callaghan, chair of Justice For Our Neighbors Dallas-Fort Worth, “[We] helped serve meals and anything that we can do to help,” 

According to the Administration for Children and Families, in 2018, there were 49,100 referrals made to the Office of Refugee and Resettlement (ORR) to find placements for unaccompanied minors. 

ACF states that by law an unaccompanied child is a minor who entered the United States unlawfully and without a parent or legal guardian in the U.S.

“Can you imagine a child, a little kid going through the problems in their country, the way they must have suffered hunger and coldness,” O’Callaghan said, “from one country to another border?”

In fiscal year 2022, the Department of Homeland Security referred 128,904 unaccompanied minors to ORR. According to ACF, ORR has cared for and found sponsors for 410,000 unaccompanied minors. As of 2023, ORR operates 296 facilities in 27 states. 

O’Callaghan says the children she worked with ranged in age from 8 to teens. She would begin by reading a book to the kids about emotions.

“I asked them to do a portrait of themselves, how they feel,” O’Callaghan said. “Give me your emotion because nobody asked them how you feeling or what is deep inside your heart.“

She began collecting the artwork, hoping to help others understand immigration is not only an adult issue.

“I’m hoping that we can get more educated as a country and know that asking for asylum is not a crime,” O’Callaghan said.

According to the United States Department of Justice, in 2022, there were over 250,000 asylum applications filed and 22,377 approved. The data includes adult asylum petitions. 

O’Callaghan isn’t certain if all the kids she worked with found their way to their sponsors, but their artwork is a way to continue the conversation on unaccompanied minors.

“I think when most people think of immigration and think of migrants, the first thought isn’t always children, and it isn’t always families,” said Meredith Parrott, outreach coordinator for Dallas Responds, Oak Law Methodist Church.