For the past nine months, the Biden administration has been transporting illegal-alien minors out of Texas in order for them to obtain abortions.
For the past nine months, the Biden administration has been transporting illegal-alien minors out of Texas in order for them to obtain abortions.
S ince October 2021, the Biden administration’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has reportedly been flying or driving pregnant illegal-immigrant minors from migrant shelters in Texas, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, to other states with greater access to legal abortion. This is part of an ongoing effort, as four U.S. officials who requested anonymity told Reuters: “Biden officials are exploring ways to provide abortion access for pregnant women and girls in U.S. immigration custody in states with bans.”
The transporting of pregnant illegal-alien minors has been going on under the radar.
Because of the Texas abortion law, the ORR, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), instructed its employees not to place pregnant migrant girls in shelters within the state of Texas “to the greatest extent possible.” In its field guidance, the ORR instructs its team to “identify available and appropriate bed space at a licensed care provider facility outside of the state of Texas. . . .”
Several sources told Vice News that the Biden administration will be taking “measures” to ensure that unaccompanied illegal-alien minors are able to obtain abortions, at least until the end of Biden’s term. This is happening on the taxpayer’s dime.
It is not known how many abortions for illegal-immigrant minors the ORR has helped facilitate over the past nine months. Neither the HHS nor the ORR responded to National Review’s questions and request for comment. However, Brigitte Amiri, deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, told Vice News that according to the most recent data, from 2019, approximately 50 minors within ORR custody were estimated to have sought access to abortion services that year. Illegal-immigrant minors unaccompanied by parents are usually processed by border agents and then transferred to the jurisdiction of the ORR. As of February 28, the ORR had an average of 9,990 minors within its care, including 3,432 females. During the Trump administration, Scott Lloyd, the former director of the ORR, unsuccessfully attempted to prevent seven migrant girls from obtaining abortions between March and December 2017.
The ORR system houses migrants in shelters, group homes, and medical facilities throughout the country. According to their revised policy as of August 2021, the ORR provides a variety of services, including “comprehensive information about and access to medical reproductive health services and emergency contraception.” Judging from the Reuters report, the ORR has now taken this to mean moving migrant girls who want abortions to states where it’s permitted.
The task will certainly get more complicated as more states are slated to ban abortions. It is estimated that up to 26 states will restrict or ban abortions. As of now, there are 16 states where abortion is banned or mostly banned, but in four of these states, judges have blocked them. Of the states that ban or mostly ban abortion, two of them, Arizona and Texas, are along the southern border (though Arizona’s 2021 “personhood” abortion law was blocked by a federal judge on Monday, leaving in effect a 15-week abortion ban). And many states with abortion restrictions are close to the border, including Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
Of course, taxpayer money should not be put toward obtaining abortions for illegal aliens of any age, and government workers should not be driving minors or escorting them on flights to states with abortion clinics. Proponents of legal abortion argue that many of these minors are victims of rape, and this, tragically, may be true. However, the Biden administration’s open-border policy — which has led to a surge of illegal immigration led by drug cartels — has surely contributed to this terrible situation.
Despite the Left’s rhetoric that a porous border is a humane policy that benefits migrants seeking to enter the U.S., this is not the case. Human traffickers, drug traffickers, and coyotes commandeer our border, making huge profits as a result of Biden’s inability or unwillingness to control entry. So far in fiscal year 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered 98,654 unaccompanied minors attempting to cross the southern border. Some of the girls have been victimized and raped along the way. Instead of addressing the border crisis in any serious way, and trying to prevent the victimization of women and girls, the Biden administration’s solution is to help pregnant girls get abortions. Rather than seeking a quick fix, Biden should stop incentivizing illicit traffickers and migrants surging across our border and take real steps to shut down illegal entry.