Trump administration keeping underage pregnant migrants in a single Texas shelter where abortion is outlawed: report

Donald Trump’s administration is concentrating all pregnant children being held in federal immigration enforcement custody into one group shelter in south Texas, a state where abortion is outlawed with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.

Since last summer, more than a dozen pregnant minors, some as young as 13 years old, have been moved to a facility in San Benito along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a joint investigation by The Texas Newsroom and The California Newsroom, citing sources within the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Department of Health and Human Services.

The agency is responsible for children who entered the United States without a parent or legal guardian or who were separated from their families by immigration authorities.

Their detention at the Texas facility deviates from longstanding federal policy, which has typically placed unaccompanied minors into ORR shelters or foster homes that can handle high-risk pregnancies.

But legal advocates and care providers fear the administration has concentrated those girls into a poorly equipped Texas shelter, even if they were detained in other states, to ensure they are denied access to abortion care.

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“It’s not a coincidence that the Trump administration is sending young pregnant girls to be detained in a state where abortion is banned,” according to Liz Wagner, senior federal policy counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“It’s beyond cruel to trap these girls — some who are victims of sexual assault — in a state where they have no choice over whether to remain pregnant and become mothers,” she told The Independent. “Everyone deserves the right to make these fundamental decisions for themselves.”

The facility has been operated by contractor Urban Strategies since December 2021.

Between January 2021 and January 2025, at least 136 pregnant unaccompanied children were detained there, The Independent has learned.

In July, ORR’s acting director Angie Salazar — a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official — instructed ORR to place “any pregnant children into the San Benito program moving forward,” according to an email obtained by media outlets.

“It is imperative that all children in care are afforded access to high-quality healthcare services, which includes reproductive health services,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids In Need of Defense, which provides support for unaccompanied children.

“Pregnant and parenting youth have unique needs and vulnerabilities and should never be prevented from accessing or requesting healthcare services,” she told The Independent. “Policy choices designed to thwart such access, including by potentially transferring children to facilities or locations with limited services, pose grave danger.”

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ORR “works to ensure the safety, well-being, and appropriate care of all unaccompanied alien children in its custody,” the agency said in a statement to The Independent.

The agency “follows child welfare best practices to place each child, including those who are pregnant or parenting, in the least restrictive and most integrated setting that meets the child’s best interest and specific needs,” according to ORR.

President Joe Biden’s administration directed ORR to move girls who wanted to end their pregnancies to facilities in states where abortion access was still legal in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade and opened the floodgates for anti-abortion states to deny access to care.

But after Trump returned to the White House, he issued an executive order to “to end the forced use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” and the Department of Justice determined that the government cannot move detainees from one state or another to facilitate abortion access, except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the pregnant patient.

Last month, ORR submitted a proposal to revoke the Biden-era policy altogether.

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The number of pregnant, postpartum and nursing women in ICE custody is unclear, though data from reporting, lawsuits and congressional reports suggests dozens were detained by immigration authorities within the last year.

That figure should be zero; ICE’s internal policy states that the agency “should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing” except in exceptional circumstances.

Women have reported being denied prenatal care and a lack of access to essential items including breast pumps and adequate food and water, all while being shackled, handcuffed and separated from their families and children.

Lawsuits from pregnant women seeking their release from ICE detention routinely appear on court dockets.

Last month, a federal judge in Minnesota rebuked the administration’s detention of a legally admitted refugee who was still breastfeeding her five-month-old.

“There is something particularly craven about transferring a nursing refugee mother out-of-state,” wrote District Judge Michael Davis, who said the mother “lost important bonding and nursing time with her baby” due to a detention he had already deemed illegal.

Last week, in Texas, a woman who said she was forcefully removed from her car and arrested at gunpoint last month before she was sent to an El Paso detention center was granted a hearing to challenge her threat of removal from the country. She is five months pregnant.

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And in Louisiana, a judge denied the release of an asylum-seeking woman who was arrested in Massachusetts in December. She is 14 weeks pregnant.

ICE has moved more than 400 children into ORR shelters since Trump returned to the White House, launching what advocates who spoke to The Independent have called an “unprecedented” return of Trump’s notorious family separation policy by targeting families who have lived in the United States for years.

Advocates fear those arrests are forcing parents to make impossible decisions that have ripped apart households.

Homeland Security officials have repeatedly insisted that the administration is not splitting up families, and that deported parents have the option to either leave with their children or place them with a guardian in the United States.