- Messages
- 21,767
Trump administration seeking access to database of immigrant minors
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for caring for unaccompanied minors, has long operated independently of ICE.“The Trump administration is seeking to grant U.S. immigration officers access to databases that contain the information on hundreds of thousands of immigrant teens and children who crossed into the United States without their parents, White House border czar Tom Homan told The Washington Post in an interview Friday.
… A similar effort during President Donald Trump’s first term drew swift outrage from civil-liberties groups who said it forced children to stay in federal custody longer, and led to the arrests of immigrant adults who had no criminal histories.
Homan said he would not rule out the use of the data for enforcement purposes in the future, but said the main focus of the information sharing is to verify that the children, who had been released from ORR custody in the past few years, were safe.
“This is about finding the kids,” Homan said. “The data won’t be used for enforcement work.”
The Trump administration has installed Mellissa Harper, a career ICE official, to run ORR, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the appointment, which was first reported by ProPublica on Friday. …”