How many children did ORR house each fiscal year 2009–2024, and what are ORR’s annual referral totals?
Executive summary
A precise year-by-year table of how many children ORR housed each fiscal year from 2009 through 2024 and a full set of ORR annual referral totals cannot be reconstructed from the documents provided here because ORR’s public pages and archived reports referenced give only selected year figures and links to datasets rather than a single consolidated table in the supplied snippets [1] [2]. Available official documents confirm specific data points — for example, ORR reported providing care for 6,644 children during FY2009 [3] and publicly lists referrals by year on its data pages [1] — but the complete FY2009–FY2024 series requested is not present in the materials provided.
1. The question and the available record: what is being asked and what the sources actually contain
The user requests two linked series: annual counts of children housed in ORR custody for each fiscal year 2009–2024, and ORR’s annual referral totals (DHS referrals to ORR) for the same years; ORR publishes daily and fiscal-year tabulations and annual reports that contain pieces of that record, but the excerpts supplied here include only specific annual figures and summaries rather than a contiguous 2009–2024 dataset [1] [2].
2. What can be stated with confidence from ORR’s official material: FY2009 housing
ORR’s 2009 Annual Report to Congress explicitly states that ORR “provided care for 6,644 children over the course of the year in its various housing facilities during FY 2009” and notes the program funded about 1,600 beds on a daily basis that year [3] [4]. That precise FY2009 housing total is an official, citable figure in the supplied report.
3. What can be stated with confidence about referrals in the supplied sources (selected years)
ORR’s fact sheet and archived materials document referrals in several high-profile years: ORR reported cumulative and per‑year referral counts showing 24,668 referrals in FY2013, 57,496 in FY2014, 33,726 in FY2015, 59,170 in FY2016, and 40,810 in FY2017; the fact sheet also describes a sharp rise starting in FY2012 and notes 13,625 referrals by the end of FY2012 in that context [5]. A Congressional Research Service overview places the 2000s average of referrals at about 6,700 annually and provides historical context for earlier peaks and troughs [6].
4. Trends, drivers and caveats in the record
The supplied sources point to volatile year-to-year referral and sheltering patterns driven by border enforcement practices, policy shifts (including Title 42 and Flores-related litigation and rule changes), and periodic “influx” management that affects shelter occupancy and referral flows; the CRS and ORR notes document that referrals spiked in some years (e.g., FY2014, FY2016) and declined in others (notably when expulsions under Title 42 reduced ORR referrals in FY2020) [6] [5] [7]. However, the supplied excerpts do not include a single downloadable table covering every fiscal year from 2009 to 2024, so any attempt to present a complete year-by-year count would require pulling the full ORR datasets or each annual report not included here [1] [2].
5. How to obtain the full 2009–2024 series and next research steps
To produce the exact series requested, the authoritative path is to download ORR’s “View the number of referrals ORR receives from the Department of Homeland Security by fiscal year” dataset and ORR’s monthly/daily population tables hosted on ACF/ORR’s facts-and-data pages and to consult each Annual Report to Congress PDF for custody/bed and admissions totals; ORR’s website provides these datasets and annual reports but the specific consolidated table for FY2009–FY2024 was not present in the snippets supplied [1] [2]. If greater granularity is required (monthly census, influx vs. regular sheltering, length of stay, or releases to sponsors), the ORR daily data files and ORR-6 reporting instruments are the appropriate primary sources [1] [8].