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McALLEN, Texas — <\/span>For five months, the young father waited for his 3-year-old daughter\u2019s release from federal custody after she crossed the U.S.-Mexico border<\/a> with her mother, hoping through delays for their safe reunion.<\/p>\n Only when he turned to the courts as a last resort did he learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse at the foster home where she\u2019d been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cShe was so long in there,\u201d said her father, who is a legal permanent resident in the United States. \u201cI just think that if they would have moved faster, nothing like that would have happened.\u201d He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to prevent identifying his daughter as a victim of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s administration began targeting detained immigrant children, like the man\u2019s daughter, last year when it implemented new rules and procedures<\/a>, which were immediately followed by a dramatic jump in detention times. The federal government intensified efforts to expand family detention indefinitely by motioning to terminate a cornerstone policy<\/a> ensuring the protection of immigrant children in federal custody.<\/p>\n For months after the girl was placed in foster care, her father\u2019s attempts to be reunited stalled as the government told him it couldn’t make an appointment to take his fingerprints.<\/p>\n During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually abused by an older child staying with her in foster care in Harlingen, Texas. A caregiver noticed the child\u2019s underwear was on backward, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver she was abused multiple times and it caused bleeding. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an \u201caccident\u201d and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview. <\/p>\n \u201cI asked them, \u2018What happened? I want to know. I\u2019m her father. I want to know what\u2019s going on,\u2019 and they just told me that they couldn\u2019t give me more information, that it was under investigation,” the father said.<\/p>\n The girl underwent a forensic exam and interview. Although the father wasn’t told of the outcome, the older child accused of the abuse was removed from that foster program, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n The girl was forensically examined and interviewed, according to the lawsuit. The abuse allegations were reported to local law enforcement, said Lauren Fisher Flores, the lawyer representing the girl. The Associated Press does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have your child abused while in the government\u2019s care, to not understand what has happened or how to protect them, to not even be told about the abuse, it is unimaginable,\u201d Fisher Flores said. \u201cChildren deserve safety and they belong with their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n The ORR and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services<\/a>, were named in the child’s lawsuit but did not respond to emails seeking comment.<\/p>\n The girl and her mother illegally crossed the border near El Paso<\/a> on Sept. 16 of last year. When her mother was charged with making false statements and they were separated, the toddler was sent to the custody of the ORR, which cares for immigrant children in shelter or foster settings.<\/p>\n Children in ORR’s care are released to parents or sponsors who submit to a rigorous process that has grown more extensive under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Stricter rules<\/a> were imposed on documentation required for sponsors, border agents started pressuring unaccompanied children to self-deport<\/a> before transferring them to shelters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement started arresting some sponsors<\/a> in the middle of the release process.<\/p>\n Legal advocates filed lawsuits challenging the policy changes, anticipating that they would result in prolonged detention.<\/p>\n Average custody times for children cared for by ORR grew from 37 days when Trump took office in January 2025 to almost 200 days this February. The total number of children in ORR custody fell by about half during the same time period. <\/p>\n Attorneys are now turning to habeas petitions, which function as emergency lawsuits, to expedite the release of children to their parents and sponsors.<\/p>\n Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association\u2019s ProBar project, said that this year the organization has worked on eight habeas corpus petitions representing children who have been held in federal custody for an average of 225 days. They had not filed these kinds of petitions for children before the start of this Trump administration.<\/p>\n Fisher Flores said that legal intervention helped prompt the federal government to respond to the father\u2019s sponsorship application. <\/p>\n After the monthslong delay, attorneys sent the government a letter in February and prompted them to allow the father to receive appointments for a fingerprinting background check, a home visit and a DNA test. Then ORR stalled again, offering no timeline on her expected release.<\/p>\n Attorneys filed the habeas petition in federal court and two days later, ORR released the girl to her father. <\/p>\n It was while the attorneys prepared the lawsuit that the father realized that the \u201caccident\u201d officials had told him about was alleged sexual abuse.<\/p>\n \u201cIncreasingly, we have to turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations and demand that children be released,\u201d Fisher Flores said.<\/p>\n The fingerprinting policy was challenged during the first Trump administration by legal advocates including the National Center for Youth Law. Other nationwide lawsuits are opposing more recent changes affecting the custody and care of immigrant children<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThis represents yet another version of family separation,\u201d Neha Desai, managing director at Children\u2019s Human Rights and Dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said of the 3-year-old girl\u2019s case. <\/p>\n \u201cA bipartisan Congress designed protections around the simple principle that children should be released to their family quickly and safely. This administration has been consistently flouting its legal obligations to release children to their families, profoundly jeopardizing children\u2019s health and well-being,\u201d Desai added. <\/p>\n When the father finally reunited with his daughter, he cried. His daughter was happy to see him, too. <\/p>\n But after her five months in detention, he started noticing changes: She had nightmares and was easily upset. \u201cShe was never like that\u201d before, her father said.<\/p>\n The pair now live in Chicago with the girl’s grandparents while her case moves through the immigration court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n