US Edition
Family Says 3-Year-Old Was Sexually Abused in ORR Custody
Attorneys say the child was abused in foster care and that ORR delayed her release for months before a court filing prompted action.
- A family filed a lawsuit alleging a 3-year-old immigrant girl suffered sexual abuse at a Harlingen, Texas, foster home after immigration officials separated her from her mother. The girl remained in federal custody for five months.
- The Trump administration implemented stricter release policies in 2025, causing detention times for immigrant children to surge from an average of 37 days to almost 200 days this February. These delays directly stalled the father's reunification efforts.
- Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father the abuse was an 'accident' and his daughter would be examined. He only learned the truth—alleged sexual abuse by an older child—while his attorneys prepared the lawsuit.
- Attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition, prompting the girl's release two days later to her father. Neha Desai, managing director at the National Center for Youth Law, called the case 'yet another version of family separation.'
- Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association's ProBar project, said the organization has filed eight petitions this year representing children held an average of 225 days. 'Increasingly, we have to turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations,' Flores said.
79 Articles
79 Articles
For five months, the young father waited for the release of his 3-year-old daughter from federal custody after she crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her mother, hoping that, despite the delays, she could meet safely. Only when she resorted to court as a last resort did she learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse in the foster home where she had been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother. “She was locked…
3-year-old suffered sexual abuse during months in immigration custody, family alleges
An immigrant family is grappling with the ordeal suffered by a 3-year-old girl who endured alleged sexual abuse while her father fought for five months for her release from federal custody.
The tragedy of family separation as a result of the migration policies of the Donald Trump Administration has manifested itself in the worst way in the case of a three-year-old girl who suffered sexual abuse while in federal custody. The girl had been separated from her mother when both crossed the border from Mexico in September and was handed over to a foster family in Harlingen, Texas. In the five months she spent with them, the girl suffered…
Fox 10 Phoenix
Family says 3-year-old immigrant girl was allegedly sexually abused while in federal custody
The family of a 3-year-old girl alleges that she endured sexual abuse while in a foster home after immigration officers separated the child from her mother when they crossed the border illegally in 2025.
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