Abbott Vetoes Bill to Increase Oversight of Migrant Child Detention Centers

For years, Texas mom Sheena Rodriguez has worn a band with the number 3120 everywhere she goes. She had it on when she testified in Congress about unaccompanied migrant children, and every time she urged Texas state lawmakers to pass a bill that would increase oversight of facilities that house them.

Human smugglers had put the band on a 13-year-old girl from Belize before she crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Rodriguez, who met the girl there in fall 2022, told her she wouldn’t need it now that she was in the care of the U.S.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that she registered that the bill she had fought for — House Bill 3120 by Republican state Rep. Stan Kitzman of Pattison — happened to have the same number.

“You can’t make this up,” Rodriguez, a Republican, said in a phone interview.

Lawmakers passed the bill to address what the elected officials described as longstanding problems with abuse, neglect and sanitation at facilities that house unaccompanied minors – the majority of whom are migrant children. It would have required detention facilities to share information on safety practices, illness prevention, criminal incidents and education plans with local authorities. Facilities that receive state funding would also need to put new hires through criminal background checks.

Gov. Greg Abbott, however, vetoed HB 3120 hours before a June 22 deadline, killing the bipartisan proposal that could have put the Trump administration’s immigration practices — and those of future presidents — under a microscope.

The bill passed with just two “no” votes in the GOP-controlled House and gained unanimous approval in the Republican-led Senate this legislative session, three years after Kitzman first filed a version of the proposal. State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, sponsored it in the upper chamber.

Unaccompanied children in U.S. detention centers have made thousands of reports of sexual abuse to federal authorities, including about 2,000 complaints in 2023 alone, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Oversight agencies have also identified problems with overcrowding, dangerous flu outbreaks and lack of access to sufficient food and water. In legislative hearings, Kitzman and Huffman referenced these reports and expressed concern about a lack of communication with local authorities, including in two facilities in the rural southeast Texas communities they represent. Both facilities opened in the past four years, most recently in Wallis in 2022.

In a veto statement, Abbott praised the bill’s goals, saying it could help local authorities respond to emergencies in detention centers.

“House Bill No. 3120 is a well-intentioned effort to make child detention facilities, and the communities around them, safer,” Abbott wrote. “This all seems like good policy. If a fire breaks out, firefighters should know how many people they need to search for inside.”

But he indicated an unwillingness to go against Trump, noting the Republican president’s administration had moved to dismantle a 90s-era court settlement governing the detention of migrant children. That policy, known as the Flores Agreement, requires federal officials to keep minors in safe and sanitary conditions; give them access to lawyers; and seek their expeditious release from the centers.

Abbott also argued the decrease in trafficking of unaccompanied minors under President Donald Trump has rendered it unnecessary to further regulate detention practices.

“Given all this change, now is not the right time to adjust the rules governing such facilities,” he said. “I look forward to revisiting this issue with a clearer picture of available options in the future.”

The Trump administration argued in court filings that the Flores Agreement has incentivized illegal border crossings by families and unaccompanied minors and limited the federal government's ability to set immigration policy.

Abbott's veto of the legislation shocked Rodriguez, who became emotional as she talked about the children she has spoken with.

“To come so close and then for it to end the way that it did, it’s just really devastating,” she said. Rodriguez is the president of Alliance for a Safe Texas, a nonprofit conservative advocacy group.

Kitzman and Huffman did not respond to the American-Statesman’s requests for comment. But prior to Abbott's veto, they were firm that the legislation was necessary regardless of who occupied the Oval Office.

“I recognize the Trump administration’s policies and Operation Lone Star have significantly decreased the number of unaccompanied immigrant minors entering our state,” Huffman said at a May 19 Senate Local Government Committee hearing. “Nevertheless, we must ensure that operators of child detention facilities do not further endanger these children through unvetted hiring practices or unclear health, safety and education plans.”

The average number of unaccompanied children in U.S. child detention centers has plummeted since Trump took office, dropping from 6,212 per month in October to 2,433 in May, as per the Office of Refugee Settlement.

But Texas still has more minors coming out of those facilities than any other state, with nearly 3,300 children being released to sponsors in Texas between Oct. 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025, compared with 23,340 in the country as a whole during the same period. In fiscal year 2024, 13,000 children were released in Texas, according to data from the ORR. There are more than 50 government-contracted facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children in Texas, according to the most recent federal reports.

“We must be proactive … so we are better prepared for the next inevitable influx,” Kitzman said at an April 14 House State Affairs hearing. “Our ability to address the complex and widespread issues involving one of the most vulnerable populations, unaccompanied children, is extraordinarily limited in this state.”

Recent court filings have indicated that issues continue to plague facilities that detain children and families. In 2024, the Biden administration sued Southwest Key, the largest operator of migrant children shelters in Texas, alleging staff members repeatedly raped and sexually harassed children in their care. The Trump administration dropped the lawsuit in March, saying it would no longer contract with the company.

In June, migrant families detained in Texas facilities told attorneys that adults were fighting children for water and access to medical care was scant in depositions submitted as evidence in Flores v. Meese, the federal case involving the Flores Agreement.

For Rodriguez, the problem is far from being over.

“Texas has always been at the forefront, and we will always be at the forefront,” Rodriguez told the Statesman on Thursday. “So long as those kids continue to come over the border, those facilities will continue to remain open. We must do something as a state to address this abuse and these long-standing allegations that are occurring on our tax dime and in our communities.”