14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable
Withdraw the ORR policy allowing elective abortions in custody
Printed page 478 14. Department of Health and Human Services
“ORR should withdraw its policy of allowing elective abortions for children in ORR care and issue a new policy of instructing care providers not to allow girls to be transported for elective abortions.”
What has happened
- Attempted
ORR's policy is unchanged and a rulemaking to change it has been formally scheduled. The Unaccompanied Children Program Policy Guide as published on acf.gov still routes every abortion request through the Biden-era Policy Memorandum: Medical Services Requiring Heightened ORR Involvement (posted 2024-01-08, effective 2024-01-15) at sections 3.4, 3.4.3, 3.4.5 and 3.4.7, and no replacement policy instructing care providers not to transport girls for elective abortions has been issued. In the 2026 Unified Agenda ACF entered RIN 0970-AD34, Unaccompanied Alien Children Program Foundational Rule; Updates to Accord with the Hyde Amendment, an NPRM scheduled for 08/2026 that 'would revise 45 CFR part 410 regarding the facilitation and funding of abortions for unaccompanied alien children'. A dated, formal commitment to act with nothing published behind it is `attempted`.
- Unified Agenda entry RIN 0970-AD34, HHS/ACF: Unaccompanied Alien Children Program Foundational Rule; Updates to Accord with the Hyde Amendment (Proposed Rule Stage, NPRM 08/2026)
- ORR Unaccompanied Children Program Policy Guide, Section 3 (still directs care providers to the January 2024 Policy Memorandum: Medical Services Requiring Heightened ORR Involvement for abortion requests)
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The RIN is in neither Federal Register Unified Agenda document. “0970-AD34” returns 0 hits in FR 2026-16603 (the government-wide Introduction and Regulatory Plan, 1.3 MB, searched) and 0 in FR 2026-16597 (HHS’s own agenda notice). Its own page records “RIN Data Printed in the FR: No”. reginfo.gov is the only Primary record, which is exactly the false negative a search of the Federal Register alone would produce.
- ACF’s related entries, none of which is this ask: 0970-AD35 (UAC Bureau standards to protect children from gender ideology), 0970-AD16 and 0970-AD26 (foundational rule updates), 0970-AD22 (foundational rule update).
- acf.gov and www.acf.hhs.gov can be read and publish a three-page sitemap of 13,399 URLs, which is how the Policy Guide was read. The event date is the publication date of the 2026 Unified Agenda.
- This Recommendation carries only a Chapter 14 citation; the ORR and TVPRA items shared with Chapter 5 are #352 and #450, both already researched and untouched here.
- Action
- withdraw
- Object
- ORR policy allowing elective abortions for children in custody
- ID
- 1327