The Trump administration has severed ties with nearly a hundred legal organizations providing immigration advice to unaccompanied children, putting more than 20,000 kids at imminent risk of losing their attorneys. Advocates warn that the cuts will funnel children into fast-tracked court hearings without legal counsel.
Funding Cuts and Ultimatums
Federal officials are set to end a contract providing legal counsel to over 20,000 children on 31 July. They have already refused to reimburse organizations for $65 million in work completed since December, according to Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, the contractor administering legal services. The government demands that organizations turn over sensitive information, including unredacted medical evaluations and data on immigration cases, or face non-payment.
“These sorts of detailed disclosures could provide the government with, really, a roadmap for mass deportation of children,” Aber said. The ultimatum is pushing many non-profits toward layoffs, hiring freezes, or financial collapse, leaving young immigrants to face court alone.
Impact on Children's Rights
Without a lawyer, children win the right to stay in the United States less than 10% of the time. Immigration judges are nearly 100 times less likely to grant relief to a child without counsel, said Elizabeth Young, a former regional deputy chief immigration judge who resigned last year. “Due process is the foundation of American justice … When children are forced to navigate one of the most complex areas of law alone, that promise of fairness becomes little more than an illusion.”
Unaccompanied children often flee human trafficking, persecution, neglect, abuse, or abandonment. Under the second Trump administration, the immigration system is being rebuilt to fuel mass deportation, with kids ordered deported before other agencies process their applications to stay legally.
Plans to Relocate Children
Reports indicate federal officials plan to send unaccompanied children en masse to Texas, where immigration courts and state leaders are friendly to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. Officials first approached the Texas attorney general’s office, run by Ken Paxton, for help representing the kids, then turned to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission. Executive director Scott Ehlers told them the request would likely violate his mandate.
Meanwhile, Texas legal organizations with a history of representing immigrant kids are on the brink of closure due to non-reimbursement. Kids in Need of Defense, founded by Angelina Jolie and Microsoft, canceled its participation as a subcontractor last month based on $20 million in overdue payments.
Advocates Sound Alarm
“You can imagine when organizations of that caliber, with the support that they’ve had throughout the years, cannot sustain this work, it tells you everything you need to know about the severity of what is happening,” Aber said. “And that’s happening right now, even before the contract expires. So the damage is already being felt, and I assume that we’re going to see hundreds and hundreds of children going to court alone.”
