Type of Content
Approved Story
1
Format
Region
An unprecedented number of unaccompanied migrant children are at risk of spending the rest of their childhoods in federal custody, CBS News learned in an exclusive interview with the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency that cares for these children.
The federal government is required to pursue "prompt and continuous efforts toward family reunification" of unaccompanied migrant children, according to a landmark court settlement, but for thousands of kids in ORR care, that reunion may never happen.
"Unfortunately, I have well over 4,000 of those children in my care at this time at the Office of Refugee Resettlement," the director, Jonathan Hayes, told CBS News in June. "So conceivably someone could come into our care at 15 years old and not have an identifiable sponsor in the United States and remain with us for a few years."