Thousands of immigrant kids risk losing legal aid after Trump administration delays funds

WASHINGTON — As many as 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children are at risk of losing their federally funded legal representation due to the Trump administration withholding appropriated funds, immigration attorneys warned Tuesday.

For more than six months, the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement has not released $65 million Congress appropriated for legal representation of unaccompanied children in immigration cases. That means children may have to press their immigration claims on their own, vastly raising the probability they will be deported, the attorneys said.

“Children are now facing the real possibility of representing themselves alone against experienced government attorneys,” Ana Devereaux, an attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said during a virtual press conference. 

Shaina Aber, the executive director for Acacia Center for Justice, a national group that partners with at least 100 legal organizations to provide services to children, said the lack of funding is already being felt. Several of the group’s partners have declined to continue the partnerships because they have not been reimbursed, she said. 

Aber said the funds were withheld because attorneys refused to hand over to the administration sensitive case data from the unaccompanied children, such as medical records and the types of legal relief the minors are seeking. 

“These children should not, and should never be, leveraged in a political game,” she said. 

HHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

‘Children are children’

Without a lawyer, fewer than 10% of immigrant children win the right to remain in the United States while their case goes through immigration court, said Elizabeth Young, a former immigration judge. 

Some children going through the courts are too young to speak, she said during the press conference. 

“A legal system that values fairness cannot expect children to carry that burden alone,” Young said. 

Devereaux said the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center is operating on reserves and has continued to provide legal services for about 1,100 children. 

“Children are children, regardless of their nationality,” Devereaux said. 

Stripping away the legal services for children, Aber said, is “yet another system of mass deportations.”

Additionally, the Trump administration does not plan to renew its contract with Acacia, which ends July 31, Aber said. 

Instead, the administration is eyeing a small Texas state commission that aids low-income people with criminal defense to provide legal services for immigrant children. The commission does not have experience handling immigration cases or unaccompanied minors, Aber said. 

Lawmakers push to release funds

Democratic members of Congress have also called on the Trump administration to release the funds, which Congress approved. 

Last month, more than 70 lawmakers demanded that ORR reimburse the legal groups. 

“Ultimately, we are concerned that these payment delays may be an attempt to circumvent requirements that ORR continue funding legal services for unaccompanied children,” they wrote. “The federal government must meet its obligations under the law.”

Congress created the Unaccompanied Children Program, which, among other things, provides funding for legal representation of migrant children. Free legal representation is not generally provided for immigrants but there is a carveout for unaccompanied children. 

There are about 100 organizations across the U.S. that provide those legal services. 

The move from the Trump administration to withhold funds has sparked several lawsuits. Last year, a preliminary injunction was put in place that ordered the federal government to continue funding legal services for unaccompanied children. 

But advocates have not received any funds since December and were back in court this month. 

Last week, federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California probed whether the Trump administration should be held in contempt over the withholding of funds after 11 groups claimed they have still not received any reimbursements, according to El Paso Matters.

Those groups are the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, Estrella del Paso, Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Social Justice Collaborative and the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.