University of Miami School of Law Professor Bernard Perlmutter, co-director of the Children and Youth Law Clinic and director of Law Clinics, examines urgent human rights issues in two new publications—one on state intervention in immigrant family life and another on barriers facing unaccompanied refugee minors in the United States.
A Transatlantic Comparative Study
Perlmutter’s first publication is a featured chapter in The State’s Powers to Intervene in Family Life, published by German academic house Gieseking Verlag. His chapter, titled "(After Babel) Stories of State Regulation of Immigrant Parent-Child Conversations: A Comparative Study," examines how contemporary states regulate, monitor, and intervene in the lives and communication of migrant families.
The publication grew out of an international research collaboration that began during Perlmutter’s 2023 sabbatical at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, where he worked with Professor Dr. Arkadiusz Wudarski. Wudarski selected the chapter as one of 25 contributions from leading family law scholars worldwide—and one of only two from the United States. The collaboration later continued at UM when Wudarski visited as a Kosciuszko Foundation Fellow during the 2023–2024 academic year.
The book is a landmark contribution to international family law, but its publication comes with sadness for the academic community. Wudarski, the project’s driving force, died unexpectedly in early 2025 during a mountain expedition in the Argentine Andes. Two posthumous editors completed the volume in his honor.
Championing the Rights of Unaccompanied Minors in Child Welfare
Closer to home, Perlmutter examines barriers within domestic foster care and resettlement systems in his second recent article, "The Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program: Overcoming Barriers to Permanency for URM Children," published in the Spring 2026 issue of Child Welfare 360° (CW360°).
CW360° is an annual multidisciplinary journal produced by the University of Minnesota School of Social Work’s Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare. The Spring 2026 issue focuses on immigration and child welfare. Perlmutter’s article, excerpted from a longer work in progress, examines the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program, which provides specialized foster care and integration services for noncitizen children who arrive in the United States without legal guardians. The article highlights the legal barriers that can prevent these children from achieving permanency—a stable, secure, long-term family environment—and proposes reforms to better meet their needs.
The complete Spring 2026 issue of CW360° and Perlmutter’s article can be accessed through the CASCW Digital Library.
