12,000 Arrested After ORR Tips

PHOTO CAPTION: Aurora and her six-year-old daughter, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to a family detention center in Texas, pose for a portrait with Aurora’s ankle monitor during an interview with Reuters in the Central Valley of California, U.S., July 23, 2026. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Aurora’s 6-year-old daughter arrived alone at the U.S. border and spent more than six months in a migrant shelter while her mother worked to secure her release.

The two were reunited in late March.

“We were overjoyed,” said Aurora, 24, who agreed to be identified only by her first name.

Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Aurora and her daughter and sent them to a family detention center in Texas, records show.

They are among more than 12,000 people arrested by U.S. immigration authorities following tips from the Office of Refugee Resettlement during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to internal government data reviewed exclusively by Reuters.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, known as ORR, was created in 1980 to help resettle refugees fleeing war and persecution. Since the early 2000s, it has also housed unaccompanied migrant children who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The care of those children was historically kept separate from immigration enforcement.

A 2008 law sought to ensure that unaccompanied children were held in the least restrictive setting and released as soon as safely possible, regardless of a potential sponsor’s immigration status.

That allowed migrant families to reunite without sponsors fearing that information submitted during the screening process would be used by ICE, even when those sponsors were in the country illegally.

The Trump administration has taken a different approach.

Since January 2025, ORR has shared more than 460,000 leads with ICE involving unaccompanied children, their sponsors — typically parents or other relatives — and additional household members, according to the data.

The information left those people vulnerable to detention and deportation.

Reuters and other news organizations have previously reported on increased cooperation between ORR and ICE. The internal data reveals the scale of the information-sharing effort for immigration enforcement.

Interviews with migrant families, legal advocates and current and former U.S. officials also illustrate the consequences of the policy shift.

Jen Smyers, who served as ORR’s deputy director during the Biden administration, said safeguards intended to prevent information from being shared with ICE had been “completely reversed.”

“They are weaponizing a child welfare program for the purposes of more deportations,” Smyers said.

ORR said in a statement that it “plays no role in the apprehension of children” and referred questions about immigration enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

DHS told Reuters that ORR had provided ICE Homeland Security Investigations with potential investigative leads during Trump’s second term.

The department said the effort was intended to locate unaccompanied children placed with “unvetted sponsors,” including some people with criminal records.

Aurora entered the United States illegally two years ago in search of work and safety.

She left her daughter with relatives in their rural Mexican village because she feared the girl was too young to make the dangerous desert crossing. Aurora later found work cleaning houses in Mississippi.

Last August, Aurora said, a relative brought her daughter to the border and left her to surrender to U.S. immigration agents, a strategy commonly used by families seeking reunification.

Officials transferred the girl to a migrant children’s shelter. Aurora then began the process of being approved as her sponsor.

Over six months, she submitted extensive documentation, including a DNA test. Records show she had no criminal record.

Under the Trump administration, sponsor screening now includes additional requirements, such as fingerprints from all household members.

The average time unaccompanied children spent in government custody increased from 30 days in fiscal year 2024 to 194 days in June 2026, according to ORR figures.

ORR declined to discuss individual cases but said the additional screening was intended to protect children from harm.

Aurora said immigration agents visited her home the day before she was reunited with her daughter. They asked about the girl and told Aurora to report to an ICE office the following week.

At that appointment, Aurora said agents asked whether she had experienced any problems in the United States.

“I said ‘no, because I haven’t done anything wrong. All I do is work,’” she recalled.

Aurora and her daughter were detained during the appointment and transferred to a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, records show.

They remained there for three weeks.

After their release, Aurora was fitted with an ankle monitor and ordered to attend regular check-ins while her immigration court case remained pending.

DHS confirmed details of the detention and release. The department said Aurora had admitted to being “illegally smuggled across the border.”

While Aurora was detained, her Mississippi landlord evicted her and discarded her belongings. She and her daughter then traveled to California, where a friend offered them a place to stay.

Aurora said she fears they will soon be deported.

At night, her daughter sometimes “gets up and cries, thinking she is still detained,” Aurora said.

Other families have been separated again after providing information to ORR.

Marleny and her youngest son fled violence in Guatemala in 2023. They crossed the U.S. border illegally and settled in Texas, where Marleny cleaned construction sites.

Her older son, Victor, initially remained with relatives in Guatemala. After his uncle was killed, Victor traveled north and surrendered to U.S. border agents.

Victor spent four months in ORR custody before being released in late April, the night before his 18th birthday, records show.

The family held a party to celebrate his return.

“I was so happy,” Marleny said. “I didn’t know then what God had in store for me.”

To obtain Victor’s release, Marleny said she gave ORR extensive documentation involving herself and her partner, including tax records and fingerprints.

She said they had no criminal records and therefore did not fear sharing the information.

Two months after Victor’s release, ICE agents arrested Marleny and her partner at gunpoint as they were getting into their car to go to work.

DHS told Reuters that ICE had been executing a criminal search warrant involving Marleny’s “roommate,” an apparent reference to her partner.

The department did not answer follow-up questions about the alleged crime or how agents located him.

Marleny said the sight of the guns was traumatic and reminded her of the violence she had fled in Guatemala.

A neighbor who witnessed the arrests alerted Victor, who was inside the family’s apartment with his 6-year-old brother.

Victor called a legal assistant at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project while in tears.

“We’ve seen so many sponsors arrested and collateral arrests with them,” said Alexa Sendukas, a managing attorney with the organization.

Victor is now caring for his younger brother alone.

He was scheduled to appear in immigration court after his mother’s arrest but said he forgot the hearing amid the upheaval. He now faces a deportation order and hopes to find an attorney who can reopen his case.

“I need to keep moving forward,” Victor said.

(Source: Reuters)