Nearly 90% of Unaccompanied Children With New Court Cases Are Being Sent to Texas

Almost 80% of unaccompanied children placed into immigration court proceedings in July, and more than 90% in August, were sent to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters in Texas, according to an analysis by researchers at bklg.org shared with the Guardian. That amounts to about 925 children in ORR care with open Texas court cases, 651 of them sent in July and August alone, out of more than 1,800 children in ORR custody at the end of July. Texas refuses to license ORR care providers, so those facilities operate with less child-welfare oversight, and legal representation runs far below the national rate of 31.7% — 17.2% in Houston, 18.6% in El Paso and 8.7% in San Antonio. ORR is seeking contracts for “emergency influx facilities” of up to 3,000 beds even though its existing network is at roughly 27% capacity; it did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.