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ICE Official Selected to Head Office of Refugee Resettlement at ProPublica

“ICE Official Tapped to Lead Agency for Unaccompanied Migrant Children – What You Need to Know”

In a recent development, Mellissa Harper, a longtime immigration enforcement official at ICE, has been appointed to lead the agency responsible for managing unaccompanied migrant children. This move has raised concerns among experts and advocates who fear that information about children and their families may be shared for arrests and deportations.

For the past two decades, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Department of Health and Human Services has been tasked with supervising children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian. The ORR’s role has been to help safely place these children with sponsors in the United States, rather than being punitive.

However, during the Trump administration, the ORR began sharing identifying information about unaccompanied children with ICE, leading to a wave of arrests. Although Congress imposed limits on this sharing and President Biden stopped the practice, Harper’s appointment has reignited concerns about the separation between the agencies breaking down.

Harper’s experience primarily lies in immigration enforcement, and she has faced litigation alleging violations of immigration law during her tenure. She led the family unit in 2018 when the administration implemented its “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents.

Advocates worry that Harper’s appointment signals a shift towards prioritizing enforcement against unaccompanied children and their sponsors, rather than focusing on child welfare principles. Cases have emerged of children ending up working illegally after being released from ORR custody to sponsors, highlighting the vulnerabilities of unaccompanied minors.

Harper’s direction of the Juvenile and Family Residential Management Unit within ICE had previously come under scrutiny, with a class-action lawsuit alleging that teenagers were illegally transferred to adult ICE detention facilities on their 18th birthdays. The court issued a permanent injunction requiring ICE to comply with federal law and consider less restrictive placements for these teenagers.

Advocates emphasize the importance of prioritizing child welfare principles for unaccompanied children, who are uniquely vulnerable and should be treated as children, not criminals. Harper’s appointment has raised concerns about the potential impact on the care and protection of unaccompanied migrant children under her leadership.

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