A long -standing immigration official was accepted to manage the agency responsible for managing migrants unaccompanied children, which is disturbed by experts and supporters who are concerned that children and their families will be disseminated for arrest and deportation.
Over the last two decades, the Office of the Ministry of Health and Human Services has led children crossing the border without parents and legal guardians. The government has handed over this duty to the relocation of refugees, not its immigration agency, emphasizing that the process should not be punitive, but instead intended for the safe placement of children with sponsors living in the United States.
That wall was torn during the first Presidential Administration, Donald Trump, when Orr began to share the identification of information about children unaccompanied and their potential sponsors with immigration and the execution of the customs bodies that carried out a wave of arrest. Congress has put restrictions on this exchange, and President Joe Biden has stopped this practice – but the new rental in the second Trump administration causes supporters, and experts who are worried, separation between agencies is being destroyed again.
According to the three current and former state officials, Melissa Harper, a veteran veteran ICE veteran was subjected to orr, and watched the care of the migrant children. Officials asked for anonymity to discuss government operations. Her position – a federal detail according to Federal catalog of staffwhich allows the careers to transfer civil servants between agencies to temporary roles.
It seems that ICE was first hired to head the refugee relocation department, former propultica administration officials said. Harper’s experience is mainly composed of immigration execution. The former ICE official said Harper has a good reputation in the agency and experience related to minors throughout the government.
A review of legal documents shows that her stay was noted by trials claiming violations of immigration law. While it was conducting a unit within the juvenile and ICE families, the agency is subject to law trial in the 2018 class, which challenged the transfer of adolescents to adult detention on the 18th birthday.
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She headed the family unit In 2018, when the administration implemented its “zero tolerance“The immigration policy and separated thousands of migrants from their parents. The former ICE official said that during the zero tolerance the unit did not make decisions in the department, but acted as transporting minors and coordinating their immigration cases.
HHS, under which the refugee Office is sitting, did not answer the questions via the propublica, referring to “pause to mass communication and public speeches that are not directly related to extraordinary situations and critical health situations.”
Harper did not answer the questions of the PROPULICA. The Trump and ICE administration also did not respond to comment requests.
Harper is there Worked on ice Since 2007, most recently Leading Field Office for Execution and Removal In the new Orleans.
Its new role appears to be part of the administration “the desire to ensure forced execution of both the accompanying children and their sponsors,” said Scott Schuchart, who served in ICE as a political assigned Biden administration.
In the past, he said, some smugglers encouraged migrants to send their children only across the border – knowing that, according to the US law, they need to be taken into custody of Orr and sponsored. He said the scenario pushed the number of children who had arrived. After release, they can apply for asylum and other immigration assistance in the US, a process that may take several months or years to decide.
Appeared cases of children who have As a result, worked Illegal, sometimes on dangerous work, after being released from Orr in custody to sponsors. In One loud case of 2015Guatemala minors who have no accompaniment were allegedly sent to work on Ohio egg.
Republicans called on the agency to not provide proper protection to prevent these types of cases. Among the squall executive orders of Trump, issued after the entry to the post of January 20, One administration directive said HHS should share the “any necessity” needed to stop trading and smuggling children.
During the first Trump administration, Orr drew attention after he started Share your information with ice About children and their adult sponsors in 2018. Using this information, the immigration protection agency Arrested about 300 peopleWhat made many sponsors are afraid of interaction with the refugee agency and contributed to many children who remain in custody.
Congress put restrictions on the exchange of information and Biden withdrew the practice. Last December. Its administration issued Notification Indicating that “orr is not an immigration agency and does not keep records for immigration purposes.”
Appointment Harper comes after the authors Project 2025, Playbook Developed by conservative groups to serve as a policy for Trump administration, recommended Transfer of Welfare Division under the authority of the Department of Internal Security and Elimination of Key Legal Legal settlement This established standards for the treatment of detained children -immigrants.
Carefully treated for minors
The direction of Harper from the juvenile and family premises unit within the ice was previously controlled.
In March 2018, an immigration agency collided with a court trial From a group of adolescents who were transferred from the guardianship orr on the 18th birthday, on adult ice content. The plaintiffs claimed that they were illegally transferred without less restrictive locations, violating the federal law.
Two years later, US County Judge Rudolf Conrapraras determined that the ice was violated the law. In his 180-page statement conclusionHe referred to Harper – or her testimony on how she managed her unit – more than 160 times.
Courthouse removed A five -year constant ban that requires an immigration agency to comply with the federal law, considering the location of these adolescents in less restrictive conditions than in the detention center. The court also instructed the agency to retrain its officers and revise their policies in how they determine the custody for children when they are 18 years old.
In October 2022, a month after the judge approved the final settlement The Class Case Agreement, Harper became the director of the ICE Field in New Orleans, reports her profile linkedIn.
In the year when the case was submitted by the ICE Press said the reporter that the agency meets the legal standards and policy of agencies. Neither ICE nor Harper answered the propublica questions regarding the case or its settlement.
Fans are now asking if such questions will arise.
“If Congress decided more than 20 years ago to postpone children unaccuttered with the trial of the law enforcement agencies of the federal immigration, it did it with a clear intention of prioritizing the principles of well -being of children,” said Naha Diaza, Senior Director on Immigration Center .
“Children unaccompanied uniquely vulnerable and should be regarded as children rather than
Criminals. “
