ORR blocked a physician-lawmaker's oversight visit to pregnant migrant minors held in an abortion-restricted Texas shelter

In a directive issued in late July 2025, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Acting Director Angie Salazar set in motion a practice of sending pregnant unaccompanied migrant children to a single ORR shelter operated by a for-profit contractor in San Benito, Texas. Since then, more than a dozen pregnant minors — some as young as 13, at least half of whom became pregnant as a result of rape, and several of whom had already given birth in custody — have been concentrated at the facility, in a state where abortion is almost entirely banned.

According to a congressional letter led by Rep. Joaquin Castro and signed by nearly 50 members of Congress, the practice would contradict ORR's own Field Guidance #21, which requires the agency to place pregnant minors where they can access the full range of reproductive healthcare options. The lawmakers noted that ORR had barred the San Benito facility in 2024 from receiving pregnant minors after staff failed to arrange timely medical appointments, failed to share critical health information, and discharged pregnant girls without arranging continued care. Reporting cited by the lawmakers, drawing on multiple ORR sources, said the July 2025 placement decision was made over the objections of the agency's own health and child-welfare officials.

On April 24, 2026, Rep. Maxine Dexter — a physician serving in Congress — conducted an oversight visit to the facility. She reported that officials blocked her from speaking with minors who had earlier indicated they wanted to meet with her, and that the number of detainees had decreased while officials would not explain where those minors had been transferred or what continuity of care they were receiving. ORR has said publicly that "no one is missing" and that it holds transfer-or-release records for every pregnant minor at the facility; a separate claim by a former ORR official that the minors may have been removed from the country remains contested and is not recorded here as established fact. HHS has defended the placements as guided by child-welfare best practices.