Trump administration cuts legal help for migrant children traveling alone
The Acacia Center for Justice contracts with the government to provide legal services through its network of providers around the country to unaccompanied migrant children under 18, both by providing direct legal representation as well as conducting legal orientations — often referred to as 'know your rights' clinics — to migrant children who cross the border alone and are in federal government shelters.
Acacia said they were informed Friday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was terminating nearly all the legal work that the center does, including paying for lawyers for roughly 26,000 children when they go to immigration court. They're still contracted to hold the legal orientation clinics.
'It's extremely concerning because it's leaving these kids without really important support,' said Ailin Buigues, who heads Acacia's unaccompanied children program. "They're often in a very vulnerable position.'
People fighting deportation do not have the same right to representation as people going through criminal courts, although they can hire private attorneys.
But there has been some recognition that children navigating the immigration court system without a parent or guardian are especially vulnerable.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008 created special protections for children who arrive in the U.S. without a parent or a legal guardian.
Emily G. Hilliard, deputy press secretary at Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement that the department 'continues to meet the legal requirements established' by the Act as well as a legal settlement guiding how children in immigration custody are being treated.
The termination comes days before the contract was to come up for renewal on March 29. Roughly a month ago the government temporarily halted all the legal work Acacia and its subcontractors do for immigrant children, but then days later Health and Human Services reversed that decision.
The program is funded by a five-year contract, but the government can decide at the end of each year if it renews it or not.
A copy of the termination letter obtained by The Associated Press said the contract was being terminated 'for the Government 's convenience.'
Michael Lukens is the executive director of Amica, which is one of the providers contracting with Acacia in the Washington, D.C. area. He said with the renewal date swiftly approaching, they had been worried something like this would happen.
He said they will continue to help as many kids as they can "for as long as possible' and will try to fight the termination.
'We're trying to pull every lever but we have to be prepared for the worst, which is children going to court without attorneys all over the country. This is a complete collapse of the system,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
2024 book review: Trump, Biden, Harris and a turbulent election full of what-ifs
Donald Trump is on a roll. The 'big, beautiful bill' is law. Ice, his paramilitary immigration force, rivals foreign armies for size and funding. Democrats stand demoralized and divided. 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, is a book for these times: aptly named, deeply sourced. Kamala Harris declined to speak. Joe Biden criticized his successor in a brief phone call, then balked. Trump talked, of course. 'If that didn't happen … I think I would've won, but it might have been a little bit closer,' he says of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, which set the race alight. Yet 2024 is about more than the horse race. It also chronicles how the elites unintentionally made Trump's restoration possible, despite a torrent of criminal charges against him, 34 resulting in convictions, and civil lawsuits that saw him fined hundreds of millions of dollars. 'Trump always drew his strength from decades of pent-up frustration with the American democratic system's failures to address the hardships and problems the people experienced in their daily lives,' Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf write. 'In 2024, [Trump's] supporters saw institutions stacked against them … leading them to identify viscerally with his legal ordeal, even though they had not experienced anything like it before.' Dawsey is a Pulitzer prize winner, working political investigations and enterprise for the Wall Street Journal. Pager covers the White House for the New York Times. Arnsdorf was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer for coverage of the assassination attempt. Dawsey and Pager are Post alumni. With Arnsdorf, they capture the aspirations and delusions of Trump and the pretenders to his Republican throne, of Biden and Harris too. 'In the weeks after the election, Biden repeatedly told allies that he could have won if he'd stayed in the race,' 2024 reports, 'even as he publicly questioned whether he could have served another four years.' Really? Biden's approval rating fell below 50% in August 2021 and never recovered. From October 2023, he trailed Trump. A year out, the authors reveal, Barack Obama warned his former vice-president's staff: 'Your campaign is a mess.' Biden's aides privately derided Obama as 'a prick'. 'They thought he and his inner circle had constantly disrespected and mistreated Biden, despite his loyal service as vice-president.' As for Harris, Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf report that she 'knew that the race would be close, but she really thought she would win'. Despite that, David Plouffe, a senior Harris adviser, admitted post-election that internal polls never showed her leading. 'I think it surprised people because there were these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw,' he said. Harris's debate win never moved the needle. Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf contend that the outcome was not foreordained. Rather, they raise a series of plausible-enough 'what-ifs'. One is: 'If the Democrats got clobbered, as expected, in the 2022 midterms, and Joe Biden never ran for re-election.' Except, by early 2022, according to This Shall Not Pass, a campaign book published that year, Biden saw himself as a cross between FDR and Obama. A telephone conversation between Biden and Abigail Spanberger, a moderate congresswoman now the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, captures Biden's self-perception. 'This is President Roosevelt,' Biden begins, before thanking Spanberger for her sense of humor. She replies: 'I'm glad you have a sense of humor, Mr President.' Back to 2024. Biden bristled at being challenged. Pushback risked being equated with disloyalty. His closest advisers were either family members or dependent on him for their livelihoods. He lacked social peers with incomes and personages of their own. Mike Donilon, a longtime aide, tells the authors: 'It was an act of insanity by the Democratic leadership to have forced Biden out. 'Tell me why you walked away from a guy with 81m votes … A native of [swing-state] Pennsylvania. Why do that?' Because Biden's debate performance was a gobsmacking disaster. He also found navigating the stairs of Air Force One difficult and needed prompts to find the podium. In May 2025, Biden announced that he had been diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer – a disclosure that came after 2024 went to press. The authors of 2024 pose Republican hypotheticals too. One: 'If Trump never got indicted, or if Republicans didn't respond by rallying to him, or if the prosecutions were more successful.' Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, demonstrated a lack of nerve. Glaringly, he failed to use the initial E Jean Carroll trial, over the writer's allegation that Trump sexually assaulted her, to bolster his presidential ambitions. DeSantis didn't dispatch his wife, Casey DeSantis, to Manhattan to offer daily thoughts and prayers for the plaintiff, or for Melania Trump. If you want to be the man, first you've got to beat the man. Another hypothetical: 'If Trump and Biden didn't agree to an early debate …' That question hangs over everything. Trump's pronouncements leave Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf anxious. After the 2022 midterms, he mused about terminating the constitution. Later, on the campaign trail, he spoke openly of being a 'dictator for a day'. When he was back in the West Wing, reporters asked: 'Are you a dictator on day one?' 'No,' he replied. 'I can't imagine even being called that.' Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf then catalog Trump's unilateral actions on that first day, including stripping political opponents of security clearances. Later that month, he commenced his vendetta against law firms he deemed to be enemies. In February, Trump barred the Associated Press from the White House press pool unless the news agency referred to the Gulf of Mexico as the 'Gulf of America'. 2024 contains no mention of Hungary's Viktor Orbán. Perhaps it should have made space. Hungary's leader is an autocrat in all but name, an elected leader who has removed freedoms regardless. Republicans adore him. 2024 is published in the US by Penguin Random House
Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
8 unhinged Donald Trump moments as Epstein row has top team on resignation watch
Donald Trump was swept back to power in November by an unusual and fraught coalition of voters. The biggest group were regular, struggling Americans who for some reason believed him when he said he'd make their shopping cheaper. But it's unlikely those Americans would have got him over the line without another contingent - who you might call the new MAGA hardcore. They're younger, more likely to be male, and much more likely to get their "news" from podcasts and social media. They're also much more likely to believe conspiracy theories about something fishy going on with the suicide of notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and subsequent investigations into his life, crimes and death. Some of them will have got these ideas from podcasters like Kash Patel, who is now, somehow, director of the FBI. Or maybe from Dan Bongino, another podcaster who is now Patel's deputy at the FBI. And Trump himself constructed a fable about a secret network of establishment bad guys operating in America - but he's not one of them, you understand. So the MAGA hardcore were delighted when Patel and Bongino got their jobs, because they would surely be able to reveal all about the shadowy paedophile rings operating at the highest levels of the deep state, or whatever. Then Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that, despite her telling Fox News a few months ago that Epstein's client list was "on her desk waiting for review", there was actually no more to see here and the investigation was to be closed. And then the other day Trump made a big show - on television - of saying he'd like very much to move on from questions about Epstein. Well, it looks very much like he's going to be very, very disappointed. Here's more on that, and how MAGA might be about to blow up in Trump's face - plus some more of the wildest goings on in Trump world overnight. Everything is fine. Here's what you need to know. According to the New York Times, Bongino and Bondi - along with Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles - had a massive blow up over the Epstein investigation. It's said Bondi accused Bongino of leaking to conservative news outlets, blaming the AG for the backlash over the probe. Bongino denied it... but then didn't turn up for work on Friday. According to Laura Loomer, one of MAGA's best connected whisperers, he's now considering resigning over the row. It's important not to underestimate how much damage Bongino leaving in anger might cause for Trump. Before Trump installed him in the FBI, he was the host of a lucrative podcast with a huge audience of MAGA hardcore listeners - and his credibility with those listeners has been put at risk by the Epstein row. He blames Bondi for that - although it's hard to see how this particular buck doesn't stop with the President himself. Overnight Washington has been buzzing with rumours that Trump might think it's worth losing Bondi to stop Bongino heading to the nearest microphone and speaking his mind. There's even talk of runners and riders to replace her - including Trump's original pick for AG, Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration after Congress published a report which found evidence that he paid for sex - including with a 17-year-old - and abused illegal drugs during his tenure in the US House of Representatives. It would certainly be a punchy choice. Errant Brit turned MAGA bon vivant Raheem Kassam, whose Capitol Hill bistro Butterworths has become a prime hangout for Trump-adjacent movers and shakers, points out there might be another thing going on here. "There's an interesting NY vs FL thing going on here, too," he wrote in a Twitter thread last night - suggesting a fault-line between the 'Florida people' in Trump's orbit - which includes Wiles and Bondi - and the rest. Kassam went on: "Susie Wiles a long standing close and personal friend of Pam's. In the event Trump would consider keeping Dan (and maybe Kash if he wants out, too) it is likely his Chief of Staff will recommend against it. Which adds layers of problems…" Yes. Steve Bannon is wrong about a great many things, but he's able to count. He suggested at an event yesterday that the Epstein row, if not resolved to the satisfaction of the MAGA hardcore, could cost Trump both the mid-terms and the next Presidential election. He said: "For this to go away, you're gonna lose 10% of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10% of the MAGA movement right now, we're going to lose 40 seats in 2026, we're going to lose the presidency." "They've disheartened the hardest-core populists," he added. Trump has found a wizard wheeze that lets him send weapons to Ukraine while not annoying MAGA any more than he has to. He suggested in an interview with NBC that the plan would be to sell the weapons to other NATO countries, who would pass them on to the besieged nation. In the same interview, Trump was asked about concerns from the CEO of Hasbro - which manufactures Monopoly and My Little Ponies - that their prices would have to go up as a result of his tariffs. Trump brushed off the warning. "If you look at the numbers, inflation's gone down," he said. "I don't know. I didn't hear anything about Hasbro. I don't care about their prices." One has to imagine that as Christmas approaches, many Americans will start to care very deeply about the price of My Little Ponies. Trump later added: "But if they make their toys here, if they made their toys here, they wouldn't have a price increase." As the world attempts to keep up with Trump's antics, the Mirror has launched its very own US Politics WhatsApp community where you'll get all the latest news from across the pond. We'll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in. All you have to do to join is , select 'Join Chat' and you're in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group. We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you're curious, you can read our . During a trip to survey the devastation following floods in Texas, Trump was asked about how well local officials were prepared and how quickly they acted - including if warning systems might have given more people time to evacuate. Trump replied: "Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you, I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that. This has been heroism." Follow our Mirror Politics account on Bluesky here. And follow our Mirror Politics team here - Lizzy Buchan, Mikey Smith, Kevin Maguire, Sophie Huskisson, Dave Burke and Ashley Cowburn. Be first to get the biggest bombshells and breaking news by joining our Politics WhatsApp group here. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you want to leave our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Or sign up here to the Mirror's Politics newsletter for all the best exclusives and opinions straight to your inbox. And listen to our exciting new political podcast The Division Bell, hosted by the Mirror and the Express every Thursday.
NBC News
4 hours ago
- NBC News
A red state reckons with Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
WALKER, La. — Few states stand to lose as much from the megabill that President Donald Trump signed into law as Louisiana. With more poverty and disease than most of the country, Louisiana relies heavily on Medicaid benefits going to people who lack the means to cover a doctor's visit on their own. That fragile lifeline is now in jeopardy. The 'Big Beautiful Bill' that Trump muscled through Congress chops Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. Out of sheer self-interest, Louisiana might seem a state that would fight to preserve Medicaid. About 35% of Louisianans under the age of 65 were covered by Medicaid in 2023, the most recent year data was available. That figure is the second highest among the 50 states, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy organization. Yet the state also voted heavily for Trump in the 2024 election and, polling shows, appreciates the job he's doing as president. Louisiana loves Trump but needs Medicaid. How does a deep-red state reconcile the two? Interviews with a dozen Louisianans, most of whom supported Trump, suggest that many in the state have absorbed the arguments that Trump and his congressional allies used to sell the bill. A few warning signs for Trump emerged. Some of his voters aren't thrilled with what they describe as his bombast or are skeptical the measure will live up to its grandiose title. 'He's a jacka-- — he's the best jacka-- we've got,' said Jason Kahl, 56, wearing a shirt decorated like the American flag during a July 4 celebration in Mandeville, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. 'A lot of times he says things that we're thinking, but don't want to say out loud,' Lydia DeRouen, 66, a customer at Cat's Coffee and Creamery in DeRidder, Louisiana, said on a recent morning. The state's embrace of the new law points to a dynamic prevalent in the Trump era: If he says he wants something, that's good enough for many of his voters. 'I just support President Trump. Most everything he's doing, I'm in on it,' said Sue Armand, a 65-year-old retiree who attended a recent festival at a park in Walker, a city outside the state capital of Baton Rouge. Nationwide, the act will reduce the number of people receiving Medicaid by nearly 12 million over the next 10 years, the largest cutback since President Lyndon Johnson created the program 60 years ago as part of his 'Great Society' agenda. Among the bill's provisions are requirements that those between 19 and 64 years old work a minimum of 20 hours a week unless they are caring for a child or are disabled. The bill also limits states' ability to raise certain taxes to help pay for their share of Medicaid programs, which could cause cuts across the board. Real-world consequences could prove dramatic. 'A lot of people who will be impacted the most negatively are Trump voters,' said Silas Lee, a New Orleans-based pollster. 'We see that in different parts of the nation, where many other communities that supported Trump will experience severe cuts in services that are critical to their survival,' Lee added. Alyssa Custard of New Orleans worries what the wider cuts to Medicaid funding will mean for her family. Her 88-year-old mother suffers from dementia and goes to an adult day care center in New Orleans. Custard's mother, who worked as a preschool teacher most of her life, has little retirement savings and not enough to pay for long-term, private in-home care. Custard and her siblings have been providing care themselves and have been able to keep working because of the adult day care program. But that funding could now be in jeopardy with the cuts to Medicaid. 'My mom worked taking care of other people's kids in the educational system for 50 years,' Custard said. 'She paid into all these things, and now, when it's time for her to reap the benefits of what she paid into for a long time, you have this bill that is taking this away from her and all the other people.' A talking point that proponents used to pass the bill was that Medicaid is rife with abuse and that the changes would expel undeserving recipients from the rolls. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump loyalist who helped steer the bill through Congress, represents a swath of western Louisiana where nearly 25% of adults under 65 rely on Medicaid. Johnson has suggested that beneficiaries include able-bodied people who won't work and are thus ' defrauding the system.' 'There's a moral component to what we're doing. And when you make young men work, it's good for them, it's good for their dignity, it's good for their self-worth, and it's good for the community that they live in,' he said in May. That justification rings true to many in his home state, who believe that federal benefits more broadly are going to the wrong people. Jason Wallace, 37, an accountant working a 'Nibbles and Noshes' stand at the Walker festival, said that when it comes to Medicaid, 'Some of the stuff I've heard about [the new law is that it is] trying to keep illegals from taking advantage of our benefits that they don't pay into at all.' A common belief is that taxpaying citizens are getting shortchanged, giving rise to feelings of umbrage that Trump has managed to harness. The new law also makes cuts to a food assistance program known as SNAP. Along with Medicaid, Congress pared back SNAP benefits to create savings that would help offset the cost of extending the tax cuts Trump signed in his first term. 'You go stand in line and the lady in front of me has her nails done, her hair done and she's got food stamps. I work too hard for what I get,' said Charles Gennaro, 78, who was among those on the Lake Pontchartrain shoreline in Mandeville on July 4 as a bluegrass band played on an outdoor stage. 'People come into this country for no reason and get things that they shouldn't get,' he added. Nancy Adams, 50, who also turned out for the celebration in Mandeville, said: 'I'm a single mom. I raised my daughter, struggling every day. And yet these illegals come in and they can get everything. I'm paying for them. But I'm struggling to raise my daughter and I don't qualify for food stamps or anything.' Independent analyses of the Medicaid program show that most recipients are already employed. KFF released a report in May showing that in 2023, nearly two-thirds of those under 65 receiving Medicaid and not other forms of federal aid were working full or part time. Those who lacked jobs cited reasons that included school attendance, care-giving duties, illness, disability or other causes. A separate KFF report that month showed that 95% of Medicaid payments last year were made properly, while the vast majority of improper payments sprang from paperwork errors or administrative actions. Robin Rudowitz, director of KFF's program on Medicaid and the uninsured, cited government estimates that 10 million people could lose health insurance coverage under the new law. 'These are not people who were fraudulently on the program,' she said. Heading toward DeRidder in the western part of the state, a driver sees billboards advertising legal services for those who've endured car wrecks or injury or are in bankruptcy. A city of about 10,000, DeRidder is part of Johnson's congressional district. A Walmart in the city was doing brisk business last Sunday, with people stocking up on groceries and supplies. Some customers of varying ages weren't ambulatory and used motorized carts. Outside the store, Don Heston, 41, who works in the oil and gas industry, described Medicaid as a 'great idea,' but one that 'needs serious rework.' 'Lots of people who are on it shouldn't be. You have people that have paid into it their entire life. They're physically messed up. They can't work any more and they can't get it. But you have people who have never worked a job with any meaning and they're getting it that quick' he said, snapping his fingers, 'because they know the ins and outs of the system.' Weeding out those who are abusing the program might be a worthy goal, but Medicaid advocates worry that cuts won't be made with such precision. Those who truly need the help may get caught up in the purge, according to Keith Liederman, CEO of Clover, the organization that serves Alyssa Custard's mother. 'In the state of Louisiana, it's many of the same staunch supporters of our president who are going to suffer as a result of this bill, and especially in rural areas of our state, of which there are many, many struggling individuals and families, many of whom are supporters of the president,' Liederman said. Clover is bracing for severe cuts that could cause it to shutter its adult day care service entirely, Liederman added. 'It's confounding to me how so many people throughout our country, when they think about people who are economically poor and struggling, think that there's something wrong with them, that they're not trying hard enough, that they're not working hard enough, that they're shirkers trying to abuse the system,' he said. 'That couldn't be further from the truth based on my direct experience in working with thousands of people who are in these positions. I've never seen people who work harder and who are trying harder to get out of poverty than the people that we serve and so many others in our community.' If health centers that rely on Medicaid patients are forced to close, it will affect patients with other forms of health insurance as well, who also rely on those providers in their community. At the David Raines Community Health Centers in northwest Louisiana, which includes several clinics in Johnson's district, officials are preparing to make cuts to their services as they anticipate a significant drop-off in the number of their patients with health insurance as a result of changes in the bill, David Raines CEO Willie White said. 'It really is going to be devastating, to say the least, for the patients that we serve and for other community health centers as a whole, as to how we're going to be able to continue to provide the level of access that we currently provide,' White said. 'I'm just not sure how it's going to work.' Clocking in at nearly 900 pages, the act brims with policy changes that will take time for voters across the country to digest. Trump directed Republican lawmakers to pass it by July 4, and they complied. So far, the bulk of this pro-Trump state seems pleased that they did. But some who voted for Trump are waiting and watching. They know the new law is big; they're just not sure yet whether it's beautiful. Jennifer Bonano, 52, is a retail clerk who came to the festival in Walker. Sitting in her folding chair, she said she voted for Trump but isn't persuaded yet that the new law is all that was advertised. 'You don't want the people that need the Medicaid and that need the food assistance to be suffering,' she said. As for the vote she cast back in November, she said: 'I'm still wondering.' 'You don't know just yet what the outcome is going to be, because with Trump he doesn't know when to hush,' Bonano said. 'You don't know if it's going to be good outcome or a bad outcome, anything he does.'
