A longtime immigration enforcement official has been tapped to run the agency responsible for managing unaccompanied migrant children, in a move that has alarmed experts and advocates who are concerned that information about children and their families will be shared for arrests and deportations.
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. The government handed this duty to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, not its immigration enforcement agency, underscoring that the process shouldn’t be punitive but instead is meant to help safely place children with sponsors living in the United States.
That wall eroded during President Donald Trump’s first administration, when the ORR began to share identifying information about unaccompanied children and their potential sponsors with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, presaging a wave of arrests. Congress put limits on this sharing and President Joe Biden stopped the practice — but a new hire in Trump’s second administration has advocates and experts worried the separation between the agencies is once again breaking down.
Mellissa Harper, a veteran immigration enforcement officer at ICE, has been tapped to lead the ORR, according to three current and former government officials, and oversee the care of unaccompanied migrant children. The officials requested anonymity to discuss government operations. Her position is a federal detail, according to a federal employee directory, which allows career government employees to transfer between agencies for temporary roles.
This appears to be the first time an ICE official has been hired to lead the refugee resettlement office, former administration officials told ProPublica. Harper’s experience mostly comprises immigration enforcement. A former ICE official said Harper has a good reputation inside the agency and expertise dealing with issues involving minors across the government.
A review of legal documents shows that her tenure has been marked with litigation alleging violations of immigration law. While she was leading the unit within ICE overseeing minors and families, the agency was subject to a 2018 class-action lawsuit that challenged the transfer of teenagers into adult detention facilities on their 18th birthdays.
She led the family unit in 2018, when the administration implemented its “zero tolerance” immigration policy and separated thousands of migrant children from their parents. The former ICE official said that, during zero tolerance, the unit was not making separation decisions but did have a role providing transportation of minors and coordination of their immigration cases.
HHS, under which the refugee office sits, did not respond to ProPublica’s emailed questions, citing “a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health.”
Harper did not respond to ProPublica’s emailed questions. The Trump administration and ICE also did not respond to requests for comment.
Harper has worked at ICE since 2007, most recently leading the enforcement and removal operations field office in New Orleans.
Her new role appears to be a part of the administration’s “desire to ensure enforcement against both unaccompanied kids and their sponsors,” said Scott Shuchart, who served at ICE as a political appointee during the Biden administration.
In the past, he said, some smugglers have encouraged migrants to send their children across the border alone — knowing that, under U.S. law, they have to be taken into ORR custody and released to sponsors. That scenario pushed up the number of kids arriving by themselves, he said. Once released, they can apply for asylum and other immigration relief in the U.S., a process that can take months or years to resolve.
Cases have emerged of children who have ended up working illegally, sometimes in dangerous jobs, after being released from ORR custody to sponsors. In one high-profile 2015 case, unaccompanied minors from Guatemala were allegedly trafficked to work on an Ohio egg farm.
Republicans have called out the agency for not providing adequate protections to prevent those types of cases. Amid a flurry of executive orders Trump issued after taking office on Jan. 20, one administration directive said HHS should share “any information necessary” to stop trafficking and smuggling of migrant children.
During the first Trump administration, the ORR drew scrutiny after it started to share information with ICE about children and their adult sponsors in 2018. Using this information, the immigration enforcement agency arrested around 300 people, which led many sponsors to fear interaction with the refugee agency and contributed to many children staying in custody for longer.
Congress put limits on the information sharing and Biden revoked the practice. Last December, his administration issued a notice stating “ORR is not an immigration enforcement agency and does not maintain records for immigration enforcement purposes.”
Harper’s appointment comes after the authors of Project 2025, the playbook developed by conservative groups to serve as a policy blueprint for the Trump administration, recommended transferring the welfare unit under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security and eliminating a key legal settlement that established standards for the treatment of detained immigrant children.
Scrutinized Oversight of Minors
Harper’s direction of the Juvenile and Family Residential Management Unit within ICE had previously come under scrutiny.
In March 2018, the immigration agency faced a class-action lawsuit from a group of teenagers who were transferred out of ORR custody on their 18th birthdays into adult ICE detention facilities. The plaintiffs alleged they had been illegally transferred without consideration of less restrictive placements, in violation of federal law.
Two years later, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras determined that ICE had violated the law. In his 180-page statement of findings, he referenced Harper — or her testimony on how she ran her unit — more than 160 times.
The court issued a five-year permanent injunction, requiring the immigration agency to comply with federal law by considering the placement of these teenagers in less restrictive settings than detention facilities. The court also mandated the agency retrain its officers and revise its policies on how they determine custody for children when they turn 18.
In October 2022, one month after the judge approved a final settlement agreement in the class-action case, Harper became the director of the ICE field office in New Orleans, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The year the case was filed, an ICE spokesperson told a reporter that the agency was in compliance with legal standards and agency policy. Neither ICE nor Harper responded to ProPublica’s questions regarding the case or its settlement.
Now, advocates question whether such issues will resurface.
“When Congress decided over 20 years ago to move unaccompanied children out of the custody of the enforcement side of federal immigration, it did so with the clear intention to prioritize child welfare principles,” said Neha Desai, a senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law.
“Unaccompanied children are uniquely vulnerable and should be treated as children, not criminals.”
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