Amna Nawaz:
Since last July, the Trump administration has been sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration enforcement to a single group shelter in South Texas.
Some of the administration’s own child welfare officials object to this policy, saying the facility lacks specialized care the girls need.
I spoke yesterday to Mark Betancourt, a journalist who spent six months reporting to break this story for both The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom, which are collaborations of public media news outlets.
Mark, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Mark Betancourt, The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom: Thanks for having me, Amna.
Amna Nawaz:
Let’s start with the girls. Tell us a little bit about who we’re talking about. How old are they, where are they from, and how do they come into the U.S. government custody?
Mark Betancourt:
So, most of the time, what happens is that, when kids cross the border unaccompanied, which means they’re not with a parent or guardian, they are transferred from Customs and Border Protection to ORR care, which is the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It’s under the Department of Health and Human Services.
They basically then distribute them among shelters throughout the country to hold them until they can be released to their sponsors, which are often family members. So the goal is to actually hold them for as little time as possible so that they can then be released while the sponsors are vetted.
So when pregnant girls are brought in, these are kids who are under 18, so they’re all minors. They would normally be placed in places that have medical facilities nearby and trained staff who can handle what are often complicated pregnancies.
So that’s what is normally supposed to happen under this process.
Amna Nawaz:
Some of the girls you reported are as young as 13. Is that right? Many of them have been assaulted, raped on the journey that they’re making to the U.S.?
Mark Betancourt:
That’s right.
So these girls are between 13 and 17. Our — my source within ORR said that about half of them were probably pregnant as a result of rape. So that is obviously a big concern. These girls have been through pretty traumatic experiences. In some cases, they were raped on the journey or in their home countries before they came here, and that’s how they became pregnant.
But a lot of times, they’re also apprehended by ICE in the interior of the country and separated from their families. So, while we don’t know the exact situations of the girls who have been placed at the shelter now, that is definitely a concern. And the trauma they have been through further complicates their pregnancies.
Amna Nawaz:
So your reporting is based on conversations you had with a number of people who are currently officials inside this agency. Why did they decide to speak to you? What concerns did they share?
Mark Betancourt:
So they decided to speak to me because I think they were concerned that it’s not safe for these girls to be placed here.
Their primary concern was that they have heard from experts within ORR, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, that this shelter is not set up to handle the complicated pregnancies of a 13-year-old, and also that the region that the shelter is in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley is — has limited health care, has limited obstetric care.
And so, especially in emergencies, it could be really difficult to get these kids the care that they need, depending on what could happen with their pregnancies. So the ORR officials who spoke to me were really concerned, feeling like they needed to speak up, given that there didn’t seem to be a response from leadership within the organization.
Amna Nawaz:
We did reach out to HHS, which oversees ORR, the agency responsible here, to ask them about the report and request comment. A couple of key points from their statement.
They say:
“To be clear, we do not send all pregnant unaccompanied minors there” to this facility. “There are others at other facilities as well.” And they also say that they make those placements based on child welfare best practices. “Each child is placed in a setting that meets their medical, developmental, and safety needs.”
Does that line up with your sources and your reporting?
Mark Betancourt:
It doesn’t. That’s not at all what my sources within ORR said.
In fact, they made a point of saying that ORR’s mission is child welfare. It is designed to be first and foremost for the best interests of the child. And they said, this is the opposite of — this is the opposite of what you would do if that was your mission. You wouldn’t send them to somewhere they couldn’t get the right care, especially if people within the organization were telling you not to do this.
But to their point of what they’re saying about the fact that not all girls are being sent there, my understanding is that the directive is that all the new intakes, girls who are entering ORR care for the first time, as long as ORR knows that they’re pregnant, they are still being sent there. That directive still stands, according to people within ORR.
Amna Nawaz:
There’s another aspect of this you include in your reporting. You spoke with advocates who say, this is a deliberate policy to shift them to Texas specifically to avoid access to abortion care or abortion services if the girls wanted them.
Why did they think that and did you find proof of that?
Mark Betancourt:
So we couldn’t find sort of direct evidence, documentation of that having been the reason for the decision, but current and former ORR officials who know this system very, very well said they couldn’t think of any other reason.
Also, the first Trump administration tried to do exactly this, tried to prevent girls from being able to get abortion while they’re in ORR care. And so it seems to be just a continuation of that policy. This is exactly what some of the officials I talked to expected, given the first Trump administration’s behavior.
And now, of course, post-Dobbs, now that Roe v. Wade is no longer an obstruction to that, it is legally a lot more possible for them to restrict the access to abortion under the Constitution.
Amna Nawaz:
And folks can, of course, read your full reporting online.
Mark Betancourt for The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom, thank you for being here.
Mark Betancourt:
Thanks so much for having me.
