Child Welfare and Federal Custody

A lawsuit filed in Texas alleges that a 3‑year‑old girl was repeatedly sexually abused by an older child while in a federally contracted foster home in Harlingen, Texas, after immigration officials separated her from her mother at the border and held her in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody for about five months. The child’s father, a U.S. lawful permanent resident, says he spent months trying to secure her release but was repeatedly told the government could not schedule his fingerprinting, only later learning from court papers that a caregiver had noticed her underwear on backward and that she reported multiple assaults causing bleeding. According to the suit, ORR officials initially described the incident to him only as an “accident,” declined to share details while citing an investigation, and removed the alleged juvenile abuser from the foster program after a forensic exam and interview. The case comes as the Trump administration has imposed stricter rules and documentation requirements on sponsors and moved to expand family detention and weaken long‑standing court protections for immigrant children, changes advocates say are driving longer detention times and greater exposure to harm. The Office of Refugee Resettlement and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, declined to comment to the Associated Press, while the family’s attorney argues the government failed in its duty to keep the child safe and to promptly reunite her with her father.