The Trump administration
Refugee chief has blocked girl, 17, from procedure
is in court, fighting to prevent a woman in immigration detention from getting an abortion.
WASHINGTON — When the Trump administration chose E. Scott Lloyd, a prominent rightto-life activist and attorney, to head the federal agency that oversees refugee affairs, he quickly set about enforcing strict anti-abortion policies.
For months, even as he personally intervened in cases and tried to talk young women out of getting abortions, his efforts drew little attention.
The case of a 17-year-old, pregnant woman in an immigration detention center in Texas has suddenly changed that.
On Friday, a federal appellate panel here is scheduled to hear arguments in a case brought by the woman, called Jane Doe to shield her identity, to force Lloyd’s office to allow her to have an abortion. The dispute seems likely to serve as an important early test of both abortion rights and the treatment of immigrants in custody in the Trump era.
Doe was pregnant when she crossed the border in September as an unaccompanied minor. Since then, she has been detained in a shelter in Texas. Lloyd, who has campaigned against abortion since his days as a law student at Catholic University, has denied her requests to leave the shelter to obtain an abortion, according to court papers.
“I feel like they are trying to coerce me to carry my pregnancy to term,” she said in court filings, saying she was forced to attend a counseling session at a religiously-affiliated center and made to look at a sonogram of her fetus.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the department of Health and Human Services, uses a network of private shelters to care for minors who are caught crossing the border illegally. In March, shortly before Lloyd took over, the office put in place a policy that bars any of the young women in their custody from taking any action to terminate a pregnancy, including scheduling medical appointments, without the written approval of the director.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued to overturn the policy, saying it puts an unconstitutional “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion. Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, says Lloyd is illegally carrying his antiabortion crusade into his work as a federal official.
“Imagine you’re a young woman who comes here,” Amiri said. “Your immigration status is held in the palm of Scott Lloyd’s hand, and this guy comes to you, this white guy in a suit, and says ‘I think you should really carry your pregnancy to term.’ That abuse of government power is stunning.”
In a brief telephone interview, Lloyd declined to comment and referred questions to the department.
Administration lawyers have asserted the government has broad power to determine whether minors in immigration custody can obtain an abortion.
“Even if she must choose between leaving the United States and the ability to seek an abortion, that choice does not constitute an ‘undue burden’ because Ms. Doe, as an illegal alien, has no legitimate right to remain in the United States,” the Justice Department wrote.
In a statement Wednesday, after a lower court rejected those arguments, the agency said that it would fight to “ensure our country does not become an open sanctuary for taxpayer-supported abortions by minors crossing the border illegally.”
If Doe has an abortion, it would be paid for privately since federal law does not allow tax funds to be used for the procedures.
The legal battle is playing out as the Trump administration moves toward other policies championed by religious conservatives. Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo instructing agencies that “except in the narrowest circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with federal law.”
In one case as director of the refugee agency, Lloyd flew to San Antonio to try to talk a young woman out of having an abortion, court filings say.
The new anti-abortion rules are a sharp departure from practices in other administrations, said Robert Carey, who ran the resettlement office under the Obama administration.
“Pregnant girls in our care were entitled to be informed of their options,” he said. “The role of the director is not to convince a woman to pursue a course of action.”