Angelica’s story of irregular migration generally followed a regular path. She arrived at the United States-Mexico border last November, and as an “unaccompanied minor,” was placed at a California shelter by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The only thing is Angelica arrived pregnant.
Angelica, 17, gave birth to her daughter in February while in ORR custody. Because of that — and despite her older sister, Deisy, completing her sponsorship application by that time — the agency temporarily barred her release until April. Changes in ORR documentation policies since then mean her and her daughter's detention is now indefinite. Unless Angelica can find another sponsor who meets the government’s requirements, she’ll be forced to remain in ORR custody until she’s 18. At that point, her daughter will be 10 months old.
“There is nothing that I want more than to live with my sister. I gave birth to my baby girl in February and being separated from my family during this time, with a new baby, has been really hard for me,” Angelica said in a sworn declaration submitted as part of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of unaccompanied minors against the Department of Health and Human Services. “My sister has done everything my case manager asked her to do … I don’t understand why I can’t live with her.”
Mishan Wroe, a senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law handling the case, told Salon that Angelica, identified in the lawsuit by a pseudonym to protect her identity, is having difficulty accepting that outcome.
“That's just not something that she was prepared for, and she's having a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that she's doing this alone, and parenting alone and feeling isolated from her family at what should be a really special time in her and her daughter’s lives,” Wroe said in a phone interview.
In March, ORR amended its documentation requirements and lifted restrictions on immigration-status-based denials for sponsors, upending the pending release of thousands of unaccompanied minors like Angelica across the nation. The National Center for Youth Law and Democracy Forward filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of the plaintiffs earlier this month, requesting a preliminary injunction blocking and reversing the changes. They’re hope is that the litigation will not just lead to their clients’ release from ORR detention, but prevent prolonged detentions for other unaccompanied minors attempting to join their families in the U.S.
“Unaccompanied children come to our country for a variety of reasons, but largely seeking safety and seeking a place where they can grow up with their families in a safe environment,” Wroe said. “By prohibiting their release to their parents — and their adult siblings, their grandparents, their close family members – and forcing them to stay in detention until they turn 18, is not a just way of treating these kids who are really only seeking the opportunity to have a childhood.”
“We're hopeful that we can play a small part in helping solve that for, at least, some of these kids,” she added.
HHS declined to comment, with a spokesperson stating that the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.
According to the lawsuit, ORR amended Section 2.2.4 of its policy guide in March to narrow the kind of identity documentation it accepts for sponsorship applications, which it applied retroactively, allowing the agency to refuse release of unaccompanied children to their sponsors because the latter lacked the immigration status needed to acquire such documentation. The new requirements limit the types of acceptable foreign identification, mandating that submitted foreign passports have a temporary I-551 stamp or Form I-94 with an arrival-departure record and an endorsement to work. The new policy also strikes several other previously accepted foreign identification methods, like foreign national ID cards or refugee travel documents with a photograph.
A second amendment to the section in April required sponsors to provide specific documents to prove their income, creating another barrier for individuals without work authorization. This change also applied retroactively.
On March 24, HHS instituted an “Interim Final Rule,” which rescinded the three restrictions on the 2024 “Foundational Rule,” a regulation that requires ORR to “release a child from its custody without unnecessary delay.” That rule prohibited ORR from disqualifying “potential sponsors based solely on their immigration status,” collecting “information on immigration status of potential sponsors for law enforcement or immigration enforcement related purposes,” and sharing “any immigration status information relating to potential sponsors with any law enforcement or immigration enforcement related entity at any time.”
Prior to these changes, the agency had also expanded its fingerprinting requirement in February, mandating that all sponsors, adult household members and alternative adult caregivers submit print-based background checks prior to the child’s release, including to a parent. Prior to the change, ORR did not require fingerprinting of sponsors who were immediate relatives except in instances of safety concerns or referrals for home study.
The policy changes come amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on irregular migration into the U.S., creating barriers for undocumented children’s release and increasing the chance that their sponsors face immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, a March 25 report from the inspector general’s office found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “can’t effectively monitor the location and status” of unaccompanied minors following their release from ORR custody, citing lapses in information sharing about their sponsors’ locations between ICE, HHS and other federal agencies. In the audit, the inspector general also reported that the agency was not always notified of the children’s statuses and safety, noting that the thousands of unaccompanied minors released to unrelated sponsors or distant relatives are at greater risk for trafficking or forced labor.
But these policy changes violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the plaintiffs argue. Even more detrimental, they add, are the requirements also force thousands of children who would otherwise be released to vetted parents and caregivers to spend months in care facilities only intended to hold children for a few weeks.
“Not only do these children suffer from the ongoing family separation they experience, but they also experience the cumulative and severe impacts of being detained in government custody for prolonged periods of time,” which includes increased risk of “somatic symptoms of stress and trauma,” difficulties with sleeping and eating, and worsened mental health outcomes, the lawsuit reads.
ORR data show that in fiscal years 2021 through 2024, an unaccompanied immigrant child’s length of stay in the agency’s care ranged from 27 to 33 days, down around 50% from lengths of stay during Trump’s first presidency. Since Trump took office, those periods have jumped for children now discharged from care, going from 37 days in January to 112 days in March and 217 days in April, according to ORR’s monthly averages. For children still in the agency’s company, the duration of their stays reached a peak in March with an average of 175 days in care.
“The hurdles are vast for them,” Wroe said, noting that HHS has also changed a number of other requirements that the lawsuit doesn’t necessarily address. “But the options are to find a sponsor who can meet these new requirements or wait in custody until they turn 18.”
Five unaccompanied minors have been named in the suit alongside a handful of younger children described but otherwise unidentified. Fourteen-year-old Eduardo and his 7-year-old younger brother have been in ORR custody at a transitional foster care program in California since late January, their mother, Rosa, awaiting a decision on whether ORR will approve an exception to the new proof of income and identification requirements she was unable to fulfill.
Another child, 17-year-old Xavier, resides in ORR custody with his 13-year-old sister, fearing that the barriers to his release the proof of income requirements have placed on their mother will result in his transfer to an adult ICE facility when he turns 18. While he has changed his sponsor and is now seeking release to his aunt, who can provide the needed income documents, his sister faces potential placement in long-term foster care should their mother fail to provide the newly required documents demonstrating proof of income.
In each case, the lawsuit emphasizes the emotional and mental toll the detention and procedural hurdles have taken on these children.
“I talk to my mom every day on the phone from the shelter,” one child, Liam, 15, said in a sworn declaration. “If I imagine arriving at her house, and opening the door, the first thing I am going to do is hug her. I’m going to hug her for a really long time. Then I just want to talk to her, about anything. I just want to talk and be together again.”
The lawsuit asks the court to stay the effective date of the IFR, prohibit ORR from enforcing the new identification and proof of income requirements, require the agency to inform all disqualified or denied sponsors they may continue with their applications, and require ORR to consider applications filed prior to March 7 under the the requirements in place at the time.
After granting the government's request for a time extension to reply and the plaintiffs' motion to proceed by pseudonym, the court has scheduled briefing deadlines and a potential hearing over the request for a preliminary injunction through the end of May.
While Wroe said she’s unsure of how successful the suit may be — or how many unaccompanied minors a single piece of litigation may be able to help — in a moment when the Trump administration’s immigration policy litigation overwhelms the nation’s courts, she said she sees the case as one avenue to healing their wounds and reuniting them with their loved ones.
“I think we want that for all children: to be able to grow up with the people who care about them and want to take care of them,” she said. “Denying their family's ability at unity — this is just a different kind of family separation, where kids are being told they have to grow up in custody instead.
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