Since March 2017, the Office of Refugee Resettlement had instructed employees at federally funded shelters to not take “any action that facilitates an abortion without direction and approval from the director of O.R.R.,” court documents say. The Trump administration has argued that their policies do not create a so-called undue burden because undocumented teenagers seeking an abortion can obtain one by finding a sponsor or voluntarily deporting themselves to their home country.

Image Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Credit... United States Courts

“This court does not find that either of these ‘options’ mitigates the undue burden that O.R.R.’s policy imposes on the young women in its custody,” Judge Chutkan wrote, calling the government’s proposal a “Hobson’s choice.”

While the Office of Refugee Resettlement and its director “are certainly entitled to maintain an interest in fetal life,” and even to prefer that pregnant teens in their custody choose one course over the other, federal officials “may not create or implement any policy that strips” the undocumented children “of their right to make their own reproductive choices,” Judge Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, continued.

Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement that the group was “relieved that the court issued an order preventing the administration from continuing this practice while our case proceeds.”

“With today’s rulings, we are one step closer to ending this extreme policy once and for all and securing justice for all of these young women,” she said.