Chuck Darwin<p>A longtime immigration enforcement official has been tapped to run the agency responsible for managing unaccompanied migrant children, <br>-- in a move that has alarmed experts and advocates <br>who are concerned that information about children and their families will be shared for arrests and deportations.</p><p>For the past two decades, an office within the Department of Health and Human Services has supervised children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian. </p><p>The government handed this duty to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, <br>not its immigration enforcement agency, <br>underscoring that the process shouldn’t be punitive <br>but instead is meant to help safely place children with sponsors living in the United States.</p><p>That wall eroded during President Donald Trump’s first administration, <br>when the ORR began to share identifying information about unaccompanied children and their potential sponsors with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, <br>presaging a wave of arrests. </p><p>Congress put limits on this sharing and President Joe Biden stopped the practice <br>— but a new hire in Trump’s second administration has advocates and experts worried the separation between the agencies is once again breaking down.</p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/Mellissa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Mellissa</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Harper" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Harper</span></a>, a veteran immigration enforcement officer at <a href="https://c.im/tags/ICE" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ICE</span></a>, <br>has been tapped to lead the <a href="https://c.im/tags/ORR" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ORR</span></a>, and oversee the care of unaccompanied migrant children</p><p>A review of legal documents shows that her tenure has been marked with litigation alleging violations of immigration law. </p><p>While she was leading the unit within ICE overseeing minors and families, <br>the agency was subject to a 2018 class-action lawsuit that challenged the transfer of teenagers into adult detention facilities on their 18th birthdays.</p><p>She led the family unit in 2018, when the administration implemented its “zero tolerance” immigration policy <br>and separated thousands of migrant children from their parents. </p><p>The former ICE official said that, during zero tolerance, the unit was not making separation decisions <br>but did have a role providing transportation of minors and coordination of their immigration cases.<br><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-children-ice-office-refugee-resettlement-mellissa-harper" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">propublica.org/article/immigra</span><span class="invisible">tion-children-ice-office-refugee-resettlement-mellissa-harper</span></a></p>