McAllen, Texas– For five months, the young father waited for his 3-year-old daughter to be released from federal custody after she crossed the border. The border between the United States and Mexico With her mother, hoping for a safe reunion despite the delay.
Only when he went to court as a last resort did he learn that the girl had been allegedly sexually assaulted in the foster home where she had been placed after immigration officials. Separated from her mother.
“She was there a long time,” said her father, a legal permanent resident of the United States. “I just think if they had moved faster, something like this wouldn’t have happened.” He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to prevent his daughter from being identified as a victim of sexual assault.
President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting detained migrant children, like the man’s daughter, last year when it implemented the New rules and procedureswhich was immediately followed by a significant jump in detention periods. The federal government has stepped up its efforts to expand family detention indefinitely by signaling this End the cornerstone policy Ensure the protection of immigrant children in federal detention.
For several months after the girl was placed in foster care, her father’s attempts to reunite with her faltered because the government told him it could not schedule a date to take his fingerprints.
During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually assaulted by an older child who was staying with her at a foster home in Harlingen, Texas. A caregiver noticed that the child’s underwear was inside out, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver that she had been abused several times and it had caused her to bleed. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an “accident” and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview.
The father said: “I asked them: What happened? I want to know. I am her father. I want to know what is happening, and they told me that they could not give me more information, and that the matter was under investigation.”
The girl underwent a forensic examination and interview. Although the father was not told of the outcome, the older child accused of abuse was removed from that foster care program, according to the lawsuit.
The girl was examined and questioned by forensic medicine, according to the lawsuit. The assault allegations were reported to local law enforcement, said Lauren Fisher Flores, an attorney representing the girl. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.
“For your child to be abused while in government care, and not understand what happened or how to protect them, and not even be told about the abuse, is unimaginable,” Fisher-Flores said. “Children deserve safety and they belong to their parents.”
ORR and its parent agency, Department of Health and Human Serviceswere named in the lawsuit against the child, but did not respond to emails seeking comment.
The girl and her mother crossed the border illegally near… El Paso On September 16 last year. When her mother was accused of making false statements and they were separated, the child was sent into the custody of ORR, which cares for migrant children in shelters or foster care.
Children in ORR’s care are released to parents or sponsors who undergo a rigorous process that has become more extensive under the Trump administration.
Stricter rules It was imposed on the documents required for sponsors, and border officers began to apply pressure Unaccompanied children for self-deportation Before they were transferred to shelters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement began Some shepherds were arrested In the middle of the release process.
Lawyers filed lawsuits challenging the policy changes, anticipating they would lead to prolonged detention.
The average length of custody for children in ORR’s care rose from 37 days when Trump took office in January 2025 to nearly 200 days in February. The total number of children in ORR custody fell by about half over the same time period.
Lawyers are now turning to habeas corpus petitions, which function as emergency lawsuits, to expedite the release of children to their parents and sponsors.
This year, the organization worked on eight habeas corpus petitions representing children who had been held in federal custody for an average of 225 days, said Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association’s ProBar Project. They did not file this type of petition for children before the beginning of the Trump administration.
Fisher-Flores said legal intervention helped push the federal government to respond to the father’s custody request.
After a months-long delay, the lawyers sent a letter to the government in February, asking them to allow the father to have appointments for a fingerprint background check, a home visit, and a DNA test. ORR then went on hiatus again, offering no timetable for its expected release.
The attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court and two days later, ORR released the girl to her father.
While the lawyers were preparing the lawsuit, the father realized that “accident” officials had told him about an alleged sexual assault.
“We must increasingly turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations and demand the release of children,” Fisher-Flores said.
The fingerprinting policy during the first Trump administration was challenged by legal advocates including the National Youth Law Center. Other lawsuits nationwide are challenging the more recent changes affecting custody and custody Caring for migrant children.
“This represents another version of family separation,” Neha Desai, executive director of human rights and dignity for children at the National Youth Law Center, said of the 3-year-old girl’s case.
“The bipartisan Congress designed these protections around the simple principle that children should be released to their families quickly and safely,” Desai added. “This administration has consistently violated its legal obligations to release children to their families, seriously putting children’s health and well-being at risk.”
When the father finally met his daughter, he cried. His daughter was happy to see him too.
But after five months in detention, he began to notice changes: she was having nightmares and was easily upset. “She was never like this” before, her father said.
The couple is now living in Chicago with the girl’s grandparents while her case moves to immigration court.
