A longtime immigration enforcement official has been tapped to run the company liable for managing unaccompanied migrant youngsters, in a transfer that has alarmed specialists and advocates who’re involved that details about youngsters and their households will likely be shared for arrests and deportations.
For the previous twenty years, an workplace throughout the Division of Well being and Human Companies has supervised youngsters who cross the border with out a guardian or authorized guardian. The federal government handed this obligation to the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement, not its immigration enforcement company, underscoring that the method shouldn’t be punitive however as a substitute is supposed to assist safely place youngsters with sponsors dwelling in the US.
That wall eroded throughout President Donald Trump’s first administration, when the ORR started to share figuring out details about unaccompanied youngsters and their potential sponsors with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, presaging a wave of arrests. Congress put limits on this sharing and President Joe Biden stopped the follow — however a brand new rent in Trump’s second administration has advocates and specialists nervous the separation between the companies is as soon as once more breaking down.
Mellissa Harper, a veteran immigration enforcement officer at ICE, has been tapped to guide the ORR, in accordance with three present and former authorities officers, and oversee the care of unaccompanied migrant youngsters. The officers requested anonymity to debate authorities operations. Her place is a federal element, in accordance with a federal employee directory, which permits profession authorities staff to switch between companies for momentary roles.
This seems to be the primary time an ICE official has been employed to guide the refugee resettlement workplace, former administration officers informed ProPublica. Harper’s expertise largely includes immigration enforcement. A former ICE official stated Harper has a very good status contained in the company and experience coping with points involving minors throughout the federal government.
A evaluate of authorized paperwork reveals that her tenure has been marked with litigation alleging violations of immigration legislation. Whereas she was main the unit inside ICE overseeing minors and households, the company was topic to a 2018 class-action lawsuit that challenged the switch of youngsters into grownup detention services on their 18th birthdays.
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She led the family unit in 2018, when the administration carried out its “zero tolerance” immigration coverage and separated hundreds of migrant youngsters from their dad and mom. The previous ICE official stated that, throughout zero tolerance, the unit was not making separation choices however did have a task offering transportation of minors and coordination of their immigration circumstances.
HHS, underneath which the refugee workplace sits, didn’t reply to ProPublica’s emailed questions, citing “a pause on mass communications and public appearances that aren’t instantly associated to emergencies or essential to preserving well being.”
Harper didn’t reply to ProPublica’s emailed questions. The Trump administration and ICE additionally didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Harper has worked at ICE since 2007, most just lately leading the enforcement and removal operations field office in New Orleans.
Her new function seems to be part of the administration’s “need to make sure enforcement towards each unaccompanied youngsters and their sponsors,” stated Scott Shuchart, who served at ICE as a political appointee in the course of the Biden administration.
Prior to now, he stated, some smugglers have inspired migrants to ship their youngsters throughout the border alone — realizing that, underneath U.S. legislation, they must be taken into ORR custody and launched to sponsors. That situation pushed up the variety of youngsters arriving by themselves, he stated. As soon as launched, they’ll apply for asylum and different immigration reduction within the U.S., a course of that may take months or years to resolve.
Instances have emerged of kids who’ve ended up working illegally, generally in harmful jobs, after being launched from ORR custody to sponsors. In one high-profile 2015 case, unaccompanied minors from Guatemala had been allegedly trafficked to work on an Ohio egg farm.
Republicans have known as out the company for not offering ample protections to stop these sorts of circumstances. Amid a flurry of govt orders Trump issued after taking workplace on Jan. 20, one administration directive said HHS ought to share “any data obligatory” to cease trafficking and smuggling of migrant youngsters.
Through the first Trump administration, the ORR drew scrutiny after it began to share information with ICE about youngsters and their grownup sponsors in 2018. Utilizing this data, the immigration enforcement company arrested around 300 people, which led many sponsors to concern interplay with the refugee company and contributed to many youngsters staying in custody for longer.
Congress put limits on the knowledge sharing and Biden revoked the practice. Final December, his administration issued a notice stating “ORR will not be an immigration enforcement company and doesn’t keep data for immigration enforcement functions.”
Harper’s appointment comes after the authors of Project 2025, the playbook developed by conservative teams to function a coverage blueprint for the Trump administration, recommended transferring the welfare unit underneath the authority of the Division of Homeland Safety and eliminating a key authorized settlement that established requirements for the therapy of detained immigrant youngsters.
Scrutinized Oversight of Minors
Harper’s path of the Juvenile and Household Residential Administration Unit inside ICE had beforehand come underneath scrutiny.
In March 2018, the immigration company faced a class-action lawsuit from a gaggle of youngsters who had been transferred out of ORR custody on their 18th birthdays into grownup ICE detention services. The plaintiffs alleged they’d been illegally transferred with out consideration of much less restrictive placements, in violation of federal legislation.
Two years later, U.S. District Choose Rudolph Contreras decided that ICE had violated the law. In his 180-page assertion of findings, he referenced Harper — or her testimony on how she ran her unit — greater than 160 occasions.
The court docket issued a five-year everlasting injunction, requiring the immigration company to adjust to federal legislation by contemplating the location of those youngsters in much less restrictive settings than detention services. The court docket additionally mandated the company retrain its officers and revise its insurance policies on how they decide custody for youngsters after they flip 18.
In October 2022, one month after the choose approved a final settlement settlement within the class-action case, Harper turned the director of the ICE subject workplace in New Orleans, in accordance with her LinkedIn profile.
The yr the case was filed, an ICE spokesperson told a reporter that the company was in compliance with authorized requirements and company coverage. Neither ICE nor Harper responded to ProPublica’s questions relating to the case or its settlement.
Now, advocates query whether or not such points will resurface.
“When Congress determined over 20 years in the past to maneuver unaccompanied youngsters out of the custody of the enforcement facet of federal immigration, it did so with the clear intention to prioritize youngster welfare rules,” stated Neha Desai, a senior director of immigration on the Nationwide Middle for Youth Legislation.
“Unaccompanied youngsters are uniquely susceptible and needs to be handled as youngsters, not
Criminals.”
