Wyden Demands End to Info Sharing Between ORR and ICE, Citing Threats to Care of Vulnerable Children
Wyden also raises alarm that current Acting Director of ORR is an ICE detailee
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., demanded the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) stop any improper sharing of sensitive information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would undermine the care of unaccompanied children and risk prolonged detention of children and family separation.
ORR has long served as a lifeline for unaccompanied children by providing them with shelter and care after fleeing violence, corruption, and abuse in their home countries to seek refuge in America. ORR is separate from immigration enforcement and by policy does not disclose sensitive information, including related to mental health, immigration status, and biographical information outside of very limited exceptions. However, during the first Trump administration, ORR entered into an information sharing memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to exploit children’s sensitive information for immigration enforcement, which traumatized kids and separated families.
“I and the rest of the country were horrified by the first Trump administration’s treatment of children in ORR custody. ORR’s essential function of protecting children was coopted to carry out an agenda of cruelty. ORR became a clearinghouse for children separated from their families under Trump’s zero tolerance policy, and routinely transported kids—many of whom were infants and toddlers—thousands of miles away from their parents to hundreds of shelters across the country. The Trump administration failed to return these children to their family members or find suitable sponsors in a timely manner,” Wyden emphasized in a letter to ORR Acting Director Harper Switzer.
Based on recent reports, Wyden expressed concerns that ICE once again has access to this sensitive information and may be using it for immigration enforcement purposes in violation of the law. Wyden also expressed concerns that the Trump administration has gone even further than previously by giving ICE direct access to ORR’s Unaccompanied Children Portal, which holds extensive and historical information on unaccompanied children, sponsors, and family members.
“Data sharing between ORR and ICE for the sole purpose of immigration enforcement imperils the privacy and security of vulnerable children and their families and sponsors. As under the first Trump administration’s MOA, such information sharing could expose children to scrutiny for information shared in confidence with medical professionals, compromise sensitive [personally identifiable information], and could chill family reunification efforts,” Wyden said.
In addition to ceasing the end of info sharing between ORR and ICE, Wyden asked for a full accounting of the mechanism and extent of DHS access to information within the UC Portal by Friday, February 28.
A full copy of the letter is here.
Wyden has long fought for the protections of children in the care of ORR. In 2020, Wyden led an effort in the Senate to call out ICE agents’ manipulative use of confidential and sensitive information – obtained from private counseling sessions between clinical therapists and children in ORR custody – to pursue immigration enforcement against them and their family members during asylum proceedings. In 2019, Wyden led a group of Oregon advocates and experts to El Paso, Texas and Otero County, New Mexico to investigate conditions for migrants – including children – at facilities on the southern border. In 2018, Wyden and then-Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., introduced legislation that would provide for the safety and welfare of unaccompanied children.
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