President Trump’s administration on Friday ended a federal contract that provides legal representation to nearly 26,000 migrant children who entered the United States without a parent or guardian, a move immigration attorneys say will leave children vulnerable to rapid deportation.
The contract provided funding for attorneys to represent minors who are under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement — at least 4,000 of whom reside in California — in immigration court.
Many of these children do not read or speak in English and some are too young to read or speak at all, according to Joel Frost-Tift, an immigration attorney with Public Counsel.
“It’s going to have a devastating effect on our clients,” Frost-Tift said. “Immigrants are five to six times more likely to succeed in their case if they’re represented by an attorney, so if they lose representation, that’s going to be really damaging for their case.”
Public Counsel currently represents around 200 unaccompanied migrant children in Southern California. Frost-Tift said attorneys will continue to fulfill their ethical duty to assist with these cases for now, but without new funding it’s unclear how long they will be able to do so.
It’s a quandary that around 100 legal aid organizations across the country now find themselves in after learning that the federal contract for children who cross the border without a guardian — which was up for renewal on March 29 — was terminated.
Last month the Trump administration temporarily halted all work completed under this contract. Days later, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reversed that decision.
Now many legal organizations are urging the Trump administration to once again reverse course.
“The administration’s decision to end these services undermines due process, disproportionately impacts vulnerable children, and puts children who have already experienced severe trauma at risk for further irreparable harm or exploitation,” Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, said in a statement. “We urge the administration to reverse this decision.”
The Acacia Center for Justice receives around $200 million in federal funds annually and subcontracts with nonprofits to secure legal representation for around 26,000 migrant children.
On Friday, it was informed by Health and Human Services that it can continue offering its “know your rights” free legal clinics to migrant children, but it must stop paying for their legal representation.
Aber said attorneys don’t just help children navigate a tumultuous legal system, but they also help protect them from human trafficking and abuse.
Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, also decried the impact of the funding cut on the safety of migrant children. She said it will make it “all but impossible” for children to appear in court at their immigration hearings or remain in touch with immigration agencies.
“It severs key lines of communication and coordination between vulnerable unaccompanied children and the institutions in place to ensure their protection,” she said in a statement.
Unlike in criminal court, individuals in immigration court do not have a guaranteed right to an attorney.
Children can avoid deportation if they are able to meet one of the requirements to obtain special immigrant juvenile status in court. For example, they can prove they were a victim of crime or human trafficking, were abandoned or abused by their parents, or were prosecuted in their home country.
But obtaining this status is near impossible without an attorney.
Children represented by an attorney show up to their immigration court hearings around 95% of the time, while those who don’t have an attorney show up around 33% of the time, according to a report by the American Immigration Council.
In the past several years, thousands of children have been deported after failing to show up to their immigration hearings. Last month the Trump administration directed immigration agents to track down and deport unaccompanied migrant children, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by Reuters.
