ORR held immigrant toddler five months in foster care and concealed alleged sexual abuse from father

A three-year-old girl and her mother crossed the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso on September 16, 2025. When her mother was charged with making false statements, immigration officials separated the child and designated her as an unaccompanied minor, transferring her to the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which placed her in a foster home in Harlingen, Texas. Her father — a legal permanent resident living in Chicago — initiated the sponsorship process to have his daughter released to him.

For roughly five months, ORR blocked or deferred the reunification through a series of administrative delays: the agency told the father it could not schedule appointments for the fingerprinting, background check, home visit, and DNA test the process required. On November 11, 2025, while the girl was in that foster placement, a caregiver noticed her underwear was on backward. The girl then disclosed she had been abused multiple times and that it caused bleeding, according to court documents. ORR reported the allegations to local law enforcement and removed the older child from the foster program. When the father asked what had happened, officials told him there had been an "accident" and that his daughter would be examined, but declined to provide further details, saying only that the matter was under investigation.

After the monthslong delay, attorneys from the American Bar Association's ProBar project sent the government a letter in February 2026 that prompted the fingerprinting appointment to proceed. ORR then stalled again with no timeline on her expected release. Attorneys filed a federal habeas corpus petition on February 18, and ORR released the girl to her father two days later. While preparing the civil lawsuit, attorneys reviewed the case file and learned that the "accident" officials had described was alleged sexual abuse; the father had not been told. ORR and HHS were named as defendants and did not respond to media inquiries.

Average custody times for children in ORR care had grown from 37 days when the Trump administration took office in January 2025 to nearly 200 days as of February 2026, according to reporting by the Associated Press. The family filed suit against ORR and HHS alleging unlawful prolonged detention and custodial failure to protect. The girl now lives in Chicago with her father and her grandparents while her immigration case proceeds.