Each year, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) takes into their care around 100,000 children who have entered the United States without a parent or guardian. Unaccompanied children spend an average of 36 days in ORR care, where a case manager is assigned to navigate their housing, education, medical, and legal needs. Eventually they will be vetted for long term placement with a relative or sponsor.

ORR case managers rely on a legacy software system called Portal to manage and track the needs of children in their care. Portal is outdated, challenging to use, and experiences frequent outages. These technological issues can put children in danger. Some have lost their medical records, or the documentation that could place them with safe sponsors, leading to real-time safety and security risks.

At the end of October 2024, 18F began the engagement with ORR to build a replacement for Portal, based on real user needs and modern technology best practices. This critical work was planned for two years before 18F was abruptly terminated on March 1st. Without the opportunity to transition work, and given the current hiring and contracts freeze, the trickle-down impact is immeasurable and cascading. Without 18F to continue this already-funded work to ease unnecessary burdens, case managers are prevented from getting the tools they need to better serve the highly vulnerable population in their care.