LANSING — The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement can improve the operation of facilities that house undocumented minors who are in government custody while awaiting court hearings, a new U.S. Government Accountability Office report says.

Michigan is one of 25 states awarded grants from the refugee resettlement office to operate facilities for minors.

No Michigan-specific numbers were included in the report, but officials said Michigan’s facilities are state-licensed and provide better conditions than those in states without such licensing.

Some states, including Florida and Texas, no longer license transitional facilities.

Federal officials did not give numbers of undocumented children being cared for in Michigan, saying it fluctuates frequently. Nor did they say where the children entered the U.S., although some entered at the southern border.

There are nine refugee resettlement facilities across Michigan. Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Lansing, Southfield and Troy have one each, while Kalamazoo and Grand Rapid have two each.

Elly Jordan, a Lansing-based managing attorney for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said “We do occasionally work with children who are apprehended at the Canadian border. I would not want to overstate or understate it, but it’s got to be at least 1000s that we’ve worked with.”

Unaccompanied, undocumented children don’t have a parent or guardian immediately available to care for them and don’t have immigration status allowing them to reside legally in the U.S.

The center, based in Grand Rapids, provides legal resources to immigrants and also has offices in Kalamazoo, Detroit and Ypsilanti.

GAO’s recommendations for facilities that house undocumented children include ensuring that care providers are qualified, providing better oversight and monitoring, and doing better tracking of how the children are treated if they are released into the care of sponsors, who may be foster families or relatives of the child.

Kathryn Larin, the director of GAO’s Education Workforce and Income Security Team, said the legal process begins when an undocumented child crosses the border without a family member and is apprehended by Customs and Border Control or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Larin said undocumented minors must be placed in a transitional facility within 32 hours.

“They don’t want children to be held in immigration detention facilities with adults for any longer than absolutely necessary,” Larin said.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the top three countries of origin with the highest percentage of undocumented children traveling alone are Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They stay an average 27 days before relocation.

Nationally, the number of unaccompanied children referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement for care has increased over time. The agency cared for about 119,000 unaccompanied children in fiscal year 2023, according to the GAO.

Larin said, “Michigan is fortunate to have transitional facilities that our Department of Health and Human Services does license.”

“We have an extra layer of protection for these kids that’s incredibly critical, and we’re grateful for the states that see that importance and recognize the state’s duty to protect all children and its boundaries,” she said.

Jordan, with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said there’s a misunderstanding among the public that immigrants have access to more public benefits than they actually receive.

“In reality, almost no public benefits are available to most, so that lack of access actually creates more vulnerability for these children,” Jordan said.

According to Jordan, potential policy shifts under the incoming Trump administration may have an impact that could make it easier to traffic children.

Cutting off funding to the Office of Refugee Resettlement or threatening the ability of older children to get work authorization would put more children at risk and put them in situations where they would be likely to be exploited by traffickers or employers, Jordan said.

“We’ve already seen some hints in some of the projected policies that are coming out,” Jordan said. “For example, there’s been threats that would impact trafficked children and attack the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.”

Jordan said the center is strongly arguing against such changes, “It’s incredibly important that children that have made their way to the United States are met with the kind of treatment that will allow them to move safely through the next chapter in their life.”