President Donald Trump's administration plans to reintroduce detention centers for unaccompanied immigrant children between the ages of 13-17 years old, Bloomberg reports.
According to a request for information released this week, the Trump administration is looking for "potential vendors who can provide Secure Care Placement services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody."
These vendors would "be responsible for maintaining secure care beds and ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation and policies governing the care of UAC."
The ORR, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for the care and placement of unaccompanied children and for managing a contract that provides funding to groups that grant free services, such as legal representation, to children being housed in government shelters. Bloomberg notes that this request comes as the administration attempts to end this program by cutting funding and ending in-person presentations about legal rights.
"There seems to be pretty firm legal support for this program," Melissa Lopez, the executive director of the organization Estrella del Paso, which provides legal advice to immigrants, told Bloomberg.
"The idea that children could move through this process by themselves without any guidance, without any information, is frankly absurd," she added, noting that the decision to cut funding and issue a stop-work order for legal services contracts could impact hundreds of pending cases.
A spokesperson for HHS said in a statement that the agency is acting in accordance with all federal laws and regulations and said that there is "nothing new" about the administration's approach to unaccompanied migrant children when compared to the Biden administration.