Pregnant migrant girls held at Texas center criticized for inadequate care

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 objected 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.

Thanks for having me on there.

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.

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

in the U.S., 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.

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.

That's right.

These girls are between 13 and 17 are my source within ORR, or are 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've been through further complicates

their pregnancies.

So you're reporting it's based on conversations you had with the number of people who are

currently officials inside this agency.

Why did they decide to speak to you?

What concerns did they share?

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, or are 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, 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.

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 and accompanied 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, they

say each child is placed in a setting that meets their medical developmental and safety needs.

Does that line up with your sources in your reporting?

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 that's the opposite of, this is with the opposite of what you would do

if that was your mission.

You wouldn't send them to somewhere where 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.

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 do they think that and did you find proof of that?

So we couldn't find sort of direct evidence documentation of that having been the reason

for the decision.

But current and former OR 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-dobs now that Roe v. Wei 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.

And folks can, of course, read your full reporting online.

Mark Bettencourt for the California Newsroom and the Texas Newsroom.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks so much for having me.