Migrant Minor is Held in Adult Detention Facility for Nearly a Year After Dental Exam Found He Was Likely 18

Soon after a young Guatemalan immigrant climbed over a border fence into California last year, he was detained, processed as an unaccompanied minor and placed in a youth shelter.

That changed when a dental exam showed an 85.8% probability that the young man was 18. At that point, the Office of Refugee Resettlement turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which held him in Orange County jails with adult immigrant detainees.