The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), part of the Administration for Children & Families (ACF), is officially responsible for the care of every unaccompanied child, “defined as a child who has no lawful immigration status in the United States; has not attained 18 years of age; and, with respect to whom, there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.”
ORR monitors the care facilities it funds, and also requires those facilities to submit paperwork when certain types of incidents occur.
Our FOIA request 📄 to ACF seeks all records collected through ten particular forms, from two OMB-approved “information collection” packages, with the exception of personally-identifiable information:
From OMB 0970-0547:
- Event (Form A-9): “This instrument is used by ORR care provider programs to document high-level information about situations that must be reported to ORR.”
- Emergency Significant Incident Report (SIR) and Addendum (Form A-10A): “This instrument is used by ORR care provider programs to inform ORR of urgent situations in which there is an immediate threat to a child’s safety and well-being that require instantaneous action.”
- Significant Incident Report (SIR) and Addendum (Form A-10B): “This instrument is used by ORR care provider programs to inform ORR of situations that affect, but do not immediately threaten, the safety and well-being of a child.”
- Sexual Abuse Significant Incident Report (SA/SIR) and Addendum (Form A-10C): “This instrument is used by ORR care provider programs to inform ORR of allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and inappropriate sexual behavior that occurred while the UC was in ORR custody.”
- Program-Level Event (PLE) Report and Addendum (Form A-10D): “This instrument is used by ORR care provider programs to inform ORR of events that may affect the entire care provider facility, such as an active shooter or natural disaster.”
From OMB 0970-0564 (Please see update below re. the narrowing of this request’s scope):
- Corrective Action Report (Form M-1): “This instrument is used by ORR Monitoring Team staff (includes Federal and contractor staff), ORR Federal Field Specialists, and ORR Project Officers to document care provider non-compliance with minimum standards for the care and timely release of UC; Federal and State Laws and regulations; licensing standards; ORR policies and procedures; and child welfare standards.”
- FFS Compliance and Safety Site Visit Report (Form M-3A): “This instrument is used by ORR Federal Field Specialists to document site visit observations and interview responses.”
- Out-of-Network Site Visit Report (Form M-3B): “This instrument is used by ORR Federal Field Specialists to document site visit observations and interview responses for out-of-network providers.”
- UC Incident Review (Form M-5A): “This instrument is completed for allegations of sexual abuse or sexual harassment that occurred in ORR care between two children.”
- Adult Incident Review (Form M-5B): “This instrument is completed for allegations of sexual abuse or sexual harassment that occurred in ORR care between a child and an adult.”
The request also seeks documentation relevant to the database systems holding these records.