Unaccompanied minors illegally detained in a Virginia youth facility without access to needed medical services for almost a year

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – In a challenge to the Trump administration’s new version of its “family separation” policy, the ACLU of Virginia filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two children who the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has been unlawfully detaining at a Virginia youth facility for more than 10 months. These children are being held without access to necessary medical services despite having a viable home placement with a sponsor.

When an unaccompanied minor comes to the U.S., ORR assumes custody until the minor can be released to the care of a sponsor. The law requires that unaccompanied immigrant children be housed in the “least restrictive setting” — typically under the care of a relative or other known adult serving as a sponsor. Now, having created an endless bureaucratic maze for the sponsorship process, the Trump administration is isolating immigrant children for months or longer in detention-like settings, away from trusted adults, schools, and communities.

“What reason could ORR possibly have to justify violating the rights of two children by keeping them warehoused in a facility for almost a year?” said ACLU-VA Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Dorna Maryam Movasseghi. “According to ORR’s own policies, unaccompanied minors must be released from detention if they have a sponsor who can take them into their custody — and our clients have an available and suitable sponsor.”

“Jane P.” and “Mark P.” are young siblings who entered the U.S. in July 2025, after fleeing violence in their home country. And while they do not have immediate family in the U.S., they have a family friend, “Mary L.”, who has agreed to sponsor them. In fact, Mary has passed every element of ORR’s own vetting process. But she has now spent almost a year petitioning ORR to release the siblings into her care from an institutional facility, where they are still being held.

ORR has refused to disclose why it continues to ignore its own procedures and processes, creating arbitrary barriers and violating Jane’s and Mark’s rights by intentionally prolonging their stays and the stays of countless other unaccompanied minors in its custody who have viable placements.

This is not the first time ORR has detained children. During the Trump administration’s first term, ORR kept minors in facilities for months that were designed to only hold children for a few weeks. Now, ORR is once again over-detaining children and violating federal law. In 2024, children were kept in ORR custody for an average of 30 days. In 2025, that skyrocketed to 117 days. Our clients have now been in ORR custody for 315 days.

“ORR is choosing chaos and confusion for the children in its care over safety and stability,” said ACLU-VA Senior Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Sophia Gregg. “ORR is tasked with facilitating the safe and speedy release of unaccompanied children in its care, but instead of following the law, it’s choosing to advance the Trump administration’s cruel, anti-immigrant agenda and causing irreparable harm to children in the process.”

The petition in Jane P. et al v. Salazar et al. was filed in the Alexandria division of the U.S District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia. The lawsuit argues that the two plaintiffs should be released from detention immediately to the care of their sponsor.