Donald Trump’s administration is concentrating all pregnant children being held in federal immigration enforcement custody into one group shelter in south Texas, a state where abortion is outlawed with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.
Since last summer, more than a dozen pregnant minors, some as young as 13 years old, have been moved to a facility in San Benito along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a joint investigation by The Texas Newsroom and The California Newsroom, citing sources within the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The agency is responsible for children who entered the United States without a parent or legal guardian or who were separated from their families by immigration authorities.
Their detention at the Texas facility deviates from longstanding federal policy, which has typically placed unaccompanied minors into shelters or foster homes that can handle high-risk pregnancies.
But legal advocates and care providers fear the administration has concentrated those girls into a poorly equipped Texas shelter, even if they were detained in other states, to ensure they are denied access to abortion care.
“It’s not a coincidence that the Trump administration is sending young pregnant girls to be detained in a state where abortion is banned,” according to Liz Wagner, senior federal policy counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The facility has been operated by contractor Urban Strategies since December 2021.
Between January 2021 and January 2025, at least 136 pregnant unaccompanied children were detained there, The Independent has learned.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement “works to ensure the safety, well-being, and appropriate care of all unaccompanied alien children in its custody,” the agency said in a statement to The Independent.
The agency “follows child welfare best practices to place each child, including those who are pregnant or parenting, in the least restrictive and most integrated setting that meets the child’s best interest and specific needs.”
President Joe Biden’s administration directed the agency to move girls who wanted to end their pregnancies to facilities in states where abortion access was still legal in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade and opened the floodgates for anti-abortion states to deny access to care.
From the Independent (U.K.)
King Herod must be mad.
As are Emperor Newsom, Queen Kamala, Latinx Socialist Princess Ocasio-Cortez (a Catholic), former Secretary Peter Buttigieg (a former Catholic) and others.
Abortion must again be imposed on the nation, from the top down, that’s only one of the reasons they’re all running.
We love both mothers and babies in Texas. And, we support the teachings of the Church that a nation has a right to secure borders and we should serve persons in need with respect and dignity when we encounter them, regardless of immigration status. Let’s put people before politics (and policies before personalities).
“to ensure they are denied access to abortion care.” Abortion CARE!!??! Their unborn babies beg to differ.
Reply to Daniel Gallop: Yes I too laugh at the terms, “Reproductive Rights and Abortion Care” Both terms have one thing in common, the killing of the unborn! End Abortion Now! Adoption is the option.