May 29, 2025
KIND submitted a public comment opposing a federal rule that severely undermines protections for unaccompanied children by making it harder for children to be safely and promptly reunited with family members.
Issued by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the interim final rule modifies an earlier regulation and eliminates provisions that restrict ORR from: sharing the immigration status information of children’s potential sponsors with immigration and law enforcement agencies, collecting immigration status information for enforcement purposes, and disqualifying potential sponsors based solely on their immigration status. These provisions are critical to upholding a framework of legal safeguards developed over decades that aim to ensure basic child welfare protections for unaccompanied children. This includes providing for children’s placement in the least restrictive settings in their best interests and for children’s release from government custody “without unnecessary delay,” most often to the care of a parent or other family member.
The rule risks prioritizing immigration enforcement over child welfare, deterring family members from coming forward to care for children, and detaining children indefinitely, at significant cost to children’s wellbeing and access to protection, and to the government. By undermining the ability of family members to sponsor children, it could also lead to children’s release to more distant or less suitable sponsors, and potentially heighten the risk of trafficking and other harm. ORR offers no explanation for its sudden shift with regard to regulations promulgated only a year before. It instead points to a perceived conflict with a decades-old immigration law that predates current child protection standards, while neglecting to meaningfully consider the rule’s impact on children and families, or specific legal protections for unaccompanied children that have long helped to support children’s wellbeing and family unity.
KIND urges ORR to reverse course and to uphold the hard-won safeguards that ensure children are treated with dignity, compassion, and care.
