The Garza settlement for immigrant minors’ abortion access ended a three-year class action against the Trump administration’s Office of Refugee Resettlement on September 29, 2020, when the government agreed to adopt a written policy prohibiting shelter staff from obstructing a pregnant unaccompanied minor’s access to judicial bypass, counseling, or abortion itself. The settlement also required “Know Your Rights” notices in federally funded shelters and $336,710 in attorneys’ fees. It did not provide monetary compensation to class members, and its practical force has been tested by executive orders, legal opinions, and shelter placement decisions issued since January 2025.
What the Settlement Requires
The case, filed as Garza v. Hargan and later renamed J.D. v. Azar, was resolved through a stipulation of voluntary dismissal filed September 29, 2020, and closed the following day. The relief was injunctive and policy-based rather than financial.
ORR issued a revised policy memorandum, UAC PM 20-1, sometimes called the “Garza rule.” It prohibits ORR staff and shelter workers from obstructing or interfering with a class member’s access to judicial bypass proceedings, non-directive counseling, abortion counseling, or an abortion procedure. The government also agreed to strict limits on disclosing a minor’s pregnancy or abortion decision to third parties, with narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or where the minor authorizes the disclosure.
Shelters must post “Know Your Rights” notices in English and Spanish on bulletin boards in federally funded facilities. Before making any change to the new policy, ORR must give the ACLU two weeks’ advance notice. The government paid $336,710 to plaintiffs’ counsel for fees and costs.
Who the Settlement Covers
The class was certified on March 30, 2018 by Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It covers “all pregnant, unaccompanied immigrant minor children who are or will be in the legal custody of the federal government.” At the time of certification, the court found more than 100 pregnant minors were in ORR custody or expected to be soon.
The suit grew out of the case of “Jane Doe,” a 17-year-old from Central America placed in a federally funded shelter in the Rio Grande Valley in fall 2017. Under a March 2017 policy set by then-ORR Director Scott Lloyd, shelter staff could not schedule an abortion appointment, arrange transportation, or help a minor pursue a judicial bypass without the ORR director’s written approval. Jane Doe obtained a Texas judicial bypass on September 25, 2017, but ORR refused to allow her to be transported to her appointment. She obtained the abortion on October 25, 2017, at fifteen weeks, after the full D.C. Circuit sitting en banc cleared the way. The Supreme Court later vacated that ruling as moot as to her individual claim in a per curiam opinion on June 4, 2018, but left the class claims intact.
What the Settlement Does Not Do
The policy memorandum keeps two constraints in place. Neither ORR nor a care provider can consent to an abortion on a minor’s behalf. And federal funding for the procedure remains subject to the Hyde Amendment, meaning federal dollars can cover an abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life.
The settlement is also silent on individual damages. No class member received money; the relief is prospective and structural.
How Protections Were Expanded Under Biden
The Biden administration went beyond the settlement’s floor. ORR adopted policies prioritizing placement of pregnant minors in states without abortion bans, and required a minor’s transfer to a state where the procedure was legal if she requested an abortion while held in a restrictive state. In April 2024, ORR published a broader “Foundational Rule” at 89 FR 35688 that codified protections for unaccompanied children, drawing on both the Garza settlement and the Flores Settlement Agreement.
What Has Changed Since January 2025
The 2020 policy memorandum has not been formally rescinded. But a series of actions have narrowed how it operates in practice.
On January 24, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14182, “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” declaring it federal policy to “end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.” The order revoked two Biden-era executive orders and directed the Office of Management and Budget to issue implementing guidance.
On July 11, 2025, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel withdrew a 2022 opinion that had allowed HHS to pay for transportation to an abortion. The new opinion concluded that paying for transportation is an expenditure with the “object, aim, or purpose” of completing an abortion and is therefore barred by the Hyde Amendment. That reading conflicts with existing ORR regulations requiring the agency to provide access to family planning services, including transportation across state lines when necessary.
Also in July 2025, ORR acting director Angie Salazar instructed staff to send “any pregnant children” to a single group shelter in San Benito, Texas, a state with a near-total abortion ban. NPR reported that more than a dozen pregnant minors were transferred to the facility, run by the for-profit contractor Urban Strategies. Seven current ORR officials told reporters they believed the transfers were designed to prevent abortion access without requiring anyone to formally deny a request. Jonathan White, a former head of ORR’s unaccompanied children program, said the move was “100% and exclusively about abortion.” HHS denied the characterization and said placement decisions were guided by “child welfare best practices.”
The San Benito facility had been barred from receiving pregnant girls between September and December 2024 while it worked through a remediation plan for its medical care. According to reporting by the Guardian, roughly half of pregnant girls in the ORR program report that their pregnancies resulted from sexual assault. Some are as young as thirteen.
On the regulatory side, the administration published a proposed rule in March 2025 to amend the Biden-era Foundational Rule, with a comment period that closed in May 2025. In January 2026, a further proposed change was submitted that would rescind the requirement to transfer pregnant minors to states where abortion is legal.
Pending Litigation
On April 15, 2026, the ACLU and the National Center for Youth Law filed ACLU Foundation v. Department of Health and Human Services in the Southern District of New York, seeking to compel the government to respond to a February 2025 FOIA request for records about the treatment of pregnant unaccompanied minors. The complaint alleges the government has held the request for over a year past statutory deadlines. Judge Jesse M. Furman was assigned the case, and the government had filed its answer as of May 2026.
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed its own FOIA request in February 2026, alleging that the administration is “deliberately transferring” pregnant minors to restrictive states and warning that litigation against ORR is “reasonably foreseeable.” The 2020 settlement policy memorandum and related 2022 field guidance remain formally in place, but their enforceability in the current environment is contested.