Unaccompanied minor

Morrison Child and Family Services in Portland, Oregon, has filed a WARN notice warning of 73 potential layoffs effective Dec. 31 if the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement does not renew a grant funding two programs serving unaccompanied immigrant children: Home Study & Post Release Services and a Long Term Group Home. Affected roles include counselors, case managers, caseworkers, supervisors, and administrative staff. Morrison's CEO says programs remain operational with no formal funding update yet. A federal spokesperson said demand for such services has sharply declined under the Trump administration, with unaccompanied children in care dropping from roughly 22,000 to about 1,600, prompting facility closures nationwide.

Sister Rose Patrice Kuhn, a 78-year-old Philadelphia-based nun with the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has spent the past year attending weekly federal immigration court hearings in Harlingen, Texas, offering prayer and moral support to immigrants and their families facing deportation proceedings. Kuhn, who has lived in the Rio Grande Valley since 2022 and previously worked in Chile, focuses particularly on unaccompanied minors, though she now reports roughly a third of young people she encounters are opting to self-deport rather than continue their cases.

Court observations show most adult defendants are also requesting cancellation of removal orders in favor of voluntary self-departure, encouraged partly by a Department of Homeland Security program using the CBP Home Mobile App, which offers travel assistance, a cash exit bonus, and fine forgiveness. Kuhn also noted a growing pattern of judges granting asylum contingent on relocation to third countries rather than immigrants' homelands, including cases separating families across different destination countries.