Office of Refugee Resettlement
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, within the Department of Health and Human Services, administers refugee assistance and is responsible for the custody and care of unaccompanied migrant children. All of its entries fall in 2026 and record the conditions and duration of that custody and the sharing of information about children and their sponsors.
2026 Events (3)
HHS/ORR compiled expedited removal list for 500+ unaccompanied migrant children, bypassing TVPRA individual case process
On June 25, 2026, the Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services, through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, identified more than 500 unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody for expedited mass removal. Senator Ron Wyden publicly warned that the planned removal would bypass the individualized case management, legal referral, and sponsor-placement process that the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act requires for each child. Multiple major outlets confirmed the list had been compiled and removal was imminent.
ORR blocked a physician-lawmaker's oversight visit to pregnant migrant minors held in an abortion-restricted Texas shelter
When Rep. Maxine Dexter — a physician serving in Congress — made an oversight visit to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelter in San Benito, Texas on April 24, 2026, officials blocked her from speaking with the pregnant migrant minors held there and would not say where detainees who had left the facility had been transferred or what continuity of care they received. The minors — some as young as 13, at least half of whom became pregnant as a result of rape — had been concentrated at the single facility since a July 22, 2025 directive by ORR Acting Director Angie Salazar, in a state that bans abortion and over the objections of the agency's own health officials. Nearly 50 members of Congress demanded answers from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Salazar; HHS says its placement decisions follow child-welfare best practices.
ORR held immigrant toddler five months in foster care and concealed alleged sexual abuse from father
Between September 2025 and February 2026, the Office of Refugee Resettlement held a three-year-old girl, separated from her mother at the border, for approximately five months in a Harlingen, Texas foster placement. During that period the child was allegedly sexually abused by an older child in care; ORR told her father there had been an "accident" and refused further details. After attorneys filed a federal habeas corpus petition, ORR released the girl to her father two days later. Only then did the father learn the "accident" was alleged sexual abuse. The family has filed suit against ORR and HHS alleging unlawful prolonged detention and custodial failure to protect.