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CBS News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Maryland judge suspends deportation of women held in "inhumane" conditions at Baltimore ICE facility
Two women who were living in Maryland and were detained by ICE will remain in the United States following a judge's ruling in federal court to suspend their deportation. U.S District Court Judge Julie Rubin said at the court hearing that her ruling was not a national injunction and only applies to the two women listed in the lawsuit. The federal class action lawsuit was filed by The Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project earlier this month, on behalf of two women, whose attorneys say were living in Maryland lawfully. Detainees have lived in Maryland for many years Their attorneys explained that they are not able to identify the women but shared that one was Guatemalan and the other from El Salvador– both lived in Maryland for many years. "They were abruptly detained after checking in for years with lawful status, and taken to the Baltimore hold rooms," said Ian Rose, the managing attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. "Miss D.N.N. was held for more than 60 hours at the Baltimore hold room, and Miss B.R.G. was, I believe, held for approximately 48 hours in Baltimore hold rooms, which is far in excess of ICE's own policy." Rose added, "These are the two plaintiffs who have bravely decided to represent the class and litigate this case." "We are seeing a policy of detain first, think later, when it comes to immigration enforcement, and it's leading to systematic violations of people's rights in the interest of meeting quotas," said Sirine Shebaya, the executive director at the National Immigration Project. "The overcrowding, unlawful detention, and inhumane conditions in the holding cells are just another outcome of that dragnet approach. The courageous women in this case should never have been detained in the first place, and the cruelty and harm they are experiencing must be stopped." "Inhumane" holding room conditions According to their attorneys, the women were allegedly being held illegally by ICE in 'inhumane" holding rooms at the George Fallon Federal Building downtown and were recently moved after being held to other facilities in New Jersey and Denver, Colorado. "Unfortunately, this is a very common thing that is happening right now," Rose said. "ICE sends people all over the country without notice. We often see folks disappear and find them later, and that's why we filed this motion." "ICE's detention crisis is of its own making, and instead of releasing people they don't have the capacity to detain, they are systematically caging people for many days in cruel, unconstitutional, and life-threatening conditions that even their own policies prohibit," said Adina Appelbaum, the program director for the Immigration Impact Lab at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. "This lawsuit is critical to stopping ICE from one of its most egregious abuses of power and ensuring that no human being is subjected to this inhumane, animal-like treatment that has no place in the United States." The defense declined to immediately speak to reporters following the hearing Wednesday morning. "The case will proceed," Rose said. "We filed while they were at the Baltimore holding rooms, and we believe that gives us the ability to proceed with the case. We will continue to have hearings and arguments about the conditions at the Baltimore holding rooms, the length of stay at the Baltimore holding rooms, and the ability of these individuals to represent a class of people that this is happening." Concerns at Baltimore's ICE facility The condition inside the Baltimore federal building has been a big concern for multiple immigrant advocacy organizations and state leaders. In March, dozens of community members rallied outside the federal building downtown where the detainees were being held. Staffers for U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks (both D-Md.) also visited the ICE holding facility in downtown Baltimore in March. Following their visit, Van Hollen and Alsobrooks wrote to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons regarding the reports of the conditions detainees have faced while in custody in the holding rooms at the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Baltimore Field Office. The letter laid out that detainees have been held for durations longer than allowed by ICE standards in a facility that is unequipped to meet their basic needs, including reports of overcrowding in holding cells with no bed space, lack of adequate food service, and the absence of medical staff on-site. The Senators' staff members noted in the letter that during their staff's visit, they learned: The average length of stay from January 20, 2025, to the date of the staff visit in March was about 1.5 days – this is more than four times the six-to-eight-hour duration the BHR is equipped for and three times what is allowed under ICE standards; The BHR has recently held up to 54 detainees at once—a concerning number for the size of the rooms, and highly unlikely to meet holding room size requirements under ICE standards; There is no infirmary or medical staff on-site, and even when a field medical coordinator is contacted, they are not able to speak to the detainees directly about their medical needs; The BHR currently has no food service contract, so ICE staff have been making sandwiches themselves or buying McDonald's, served vaguely "at mealtimes"; The BHR also has no bed space, so ICE staff have procured emergency foil blankets and inflatable beds that are sanitized daily
CNN
17-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘Railroad kids through the system': Immigration court's youngest left to their own devices
Every week, Evelyn Flores travels to government shelters in the Washington, DC, region for story time with migrant children, telling the tale of a cartoon cat learning to navigate a confusing immigration system with the help of his superhero lawyer. 'They don't know what is an attorney, they don't know what is a judge, they are very little,' said Flores, managing paralegal for the children's program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. 'We try our best to explain, but it's so difficult.' Now, these teachable moments may become even more critical if children are forced to face the courtroom alone, without a lawyer. Amid public outrage over due process afforded to immigrants, or the lack thereof, it's some of the youngest in the immigration court system who may be among those hit the hardest by the Trump administration crackdown and funding cutbacks. The administration decided in March to terminate a federal contract with Acacia Center for Justice, which manages a network of legal service organizations representing around 26,000 unaccompanied children – some who are infants and too young to speak – in the United States. 'This decision was made without any plan in place to address the 26,000 children with open cases that the government encouraged our network to take on. As a result, these children are now unable to meaningfully participate in their cases and are left in the lurch,' said Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia Center for Justice. In just the span of a few weeks, the move has resulted in sweeping staff layoffs and a disruption in legal services that could lead to attorneys withdrawing from cases. 'The federal support is everything,' said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense. 'We would probably see more like 90 percent of these kids going through proceedings without counsel.' At the same time, migrant children are being placed on expedited court dockets as part of efforts to speed up deportations, significantly cutting the time they have to collect evidence and present their case before an immigration judge. 'This is a process that will just railroad kids through the system,' Young said. 'They'll receive an order to be deported from the United States without any access to due process or fundamental fairness.' Under US law, immigrants don't have a right to counsel at the government's expense, not even children, leaving them to depend on volunteer lawyers or nongovernmental organizations. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 created special protections for migrant children, including ensuring 'to the greatest extent practicable' that they have counsel to represent them. The Trump administration has argued in court filings that the federal government has discretion in how it distributes federal funds. 'Although, the money was authorized by Congress, Congress never mandated its spending,' it wrote. A federal judge has since ordered the administration to temporarily restore funding, but to date, that hasn't happened, according to recipients of those funds. The Trump administration has said thousands of migrant children who are seeking asylum or other legal status are unaccounted for and is trying to track them down. 'President Trump's committed to doing everything he can to find these kids, but I'm going to admit to you right now that's the toughest job of the three things he wants me to do. That's the toughest part of it,' White House border czar Tom Homan told a special joint session of the Arizona legislature this month. Experts argue that cutting federal funds for key services runs counter to that effort, taking away the people who are helping them through the immigration system, and that includes reporting to the government. Flores tells the story of the cartoon cat, known as Fulanito to children 12 years old and under. Fulanito, in Flores' story time, crosses into the United States and eventually goes before an immigration judge, and his attorney helps him secure immigration relief. For teenagers, the group describes the immigration court process through a soccer analogy. Organizations who work with migrant children often have to be creative to get them to open up. Staffers use coloring books, fidget toys and stress balls. 'We'll often color with children. We'll pull out a page for ourselves and color while we speak with them. It's hard to talk about heavy things while you're just staring at each other in the face,' said Scott Bassett, managing attorney of the children's program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. Young likened her offices to a nursery school. The lesson: how to fight your deportation proceeding. 'We'll have toddlers running all over the place, and my staff is explaining to them, using toys, crayons, chalkboards, what their rights are in the immigration system. And it's both something that's both very poignant, it's very joyful, but there's also a tremendous sense of gravity to it,' Young said. Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, which also works with unaccompanied children, uses handmade toy sets representing a courtroom for one-on-one legal screenings with kids. Kids in Need of Defense puts on puppet shows. Ages range, but the importance of immigration proceedings remain the same for all who go before an immigration judge – who ultimately decides if someone stays in the United States or is removed. 'I was in a court last summer where a three-year-old was in proceedings. He played with his toy car in the aisle of the courtroom until he was called, and then a young woman picked him up and brought him to the front of the courtroom,' Young said. 'I can tell you, I knew that child knew something dramatic was about to happen. He started crying. He was inconsolable at that point,' she added. In a recent court filing submitted as part of the ongoing lawsuit over terminating of funds, the Young Center's child advocates cited 'children as young as five years old sitting at tables by themselves in front of judges.' 'During the days immediately following the termination of funding, Child Advocates observed immigration judges learning for the first time at court hearings that funding for legal representation and friend of court services for unaccompanied children had been terminated,' the filings read. 'Upon arriving at court, children also learned for the first time that they would not have an attorney to represent them. In one court, Young Center Child Advocates observed a 14-year-old girl break down in tears in the court's lobby when she was told that she would not have a lawyer and would need to stand up in court all alone,' it continued. The Health and Human Services Department's Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with the care of unaccompanied migrant children until they are released to a sponsor in the United States, such as a relative or family friend. The agency recently rolled out multiple new policies regarding the release of children to sponsors that make it more difficult for kids to be reunited with their guardians. Trump officials have argued the additional vetting of sponsors is necessary to ensure the child's safety. But experts describe it as a dramatic shift that is likely to keep children in custody longer. 'ORR has recently imposed a series of draconian sponsor vetting requirements, including restrictive ID requirements, universal fingerprinting and DNA testing,' said Neha Desai, managing director of children's human rights and dignity at the National Center for Youth Law. 'This has made it nearly impossible for children in ORR custody to be released if their sponsor is undocumented or if the sponsor lives with people who are undocumented – even if the child is seeking release to their parent,' she added. Meanwhile, in some courtrooms, cases are being sped up to be resolved in a matter of weeks. In a New York courtroom on Monday, an immigration judge presided over a group of seven to 10 unaccompanied minors – ranging from ages 6 to 17 and most without legal representation. They appeared virtually from government custody. The judge guided the children through the basics of the immigration court process. 'Just because you can be removed doesn't mean you need to be,' Judge Jennifer Durkin told them, emphasizing that their individual stories mattered. She acknowledged the intimidating nature of the proceedings, adding: 'My job is to listen to why you came to the United States.' The minors, who currently reside in a government-run shelter in Brooklyn, appeared attentive. At moments, the seriousness of the hearing gave way to childhood – one boy let out a few playful giggles during the judge's questioning. Two children were in the process of reunification with family members. One, a young girl with cerebral palsy who is currently hospitalized, was represented by counsel. Her attorney informed the judge that she was being reunited with her mother. The six-year-old, the youngest in attendance, was also represented by counsel. His attorney said he was in the process of being reunited with his maternal grandmother. All the children were scheduled for a second hearing in June or July, giving those without counsel roughly two months to find legal representation.
CNN
17-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘Railroad kids through the system': Immigration court's youngest left to their own devices
Every week, Evelyn Flores travels to government shelters in the Washington, DC, region for story time with migrant children, telling the tale of a cartoon cat learning to navigate a confusing immigration system with the help of his superhero lawyer. 'They don't know what is an attorney, they don't know what is a judge, they are very little,' said Flores, managing paralegal for the children's program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. 'We try our best to explain, but it's so difficult.' Now, these teachable moments may become even more critical if children are forced to face the courtroom alone, without a lawyer. Amid public outrage over due process afforded to immigrants, or the lack thereof, it's some of the youngest in the immigration court system who may be among those hit the hardest by the Trump administration crackdown and funding cutbacks. The administration decided in March to terminate a federal contract with Acacia Center for Justice, which manages a network of legal service organizations representing around 26,000 unaccompanied children – some who are infants and too young to speak – in the United States. 'This decision was made without any plan in place to address the 26,000 children with open cases that the government encouraged our network to take on. As a result, these children are now unable to meaningfully participate in their cases and are left in the lurch,' said Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia Center for Justice. In just the span of a few weeks, the move has resulted in sweeping staff layoffs and a disruption in legal services that could lead to attorneys withdrawing from cases. 'The federal support is everything,' said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense. 'We would probably see more like 90 percent of these kids going through proceedings without counsel.' At the same time, migrant children are being placed on expedited court dockets as part of efforts to speed up deportations, significantly cutting the time they have to collect evidence and present their case before an immigration judge. 'This is a process that will just railroad kids through the system,' Young said. 'They'll receive an order to be deported from the United States without any access to due process or fundamental fairness.' Under US law, immigrants don't have a right to counsel at the government's expense, not even children, leaving them to depend on volunteer lawyers or nongovernmental organizations. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 created special protections for migrant children, including ensuring 'to the greatest extent practicable' that they have counsel to represent them. The Trump administration has argued in court filings that the federal government has discretion in how it distributes federal funds. 'Although, the money was authorized by Congress, Congress never mandated its spending,' it wrote. A federal judge has since ordered the administration to temporarily restore funding, but to date, that hasn't happened, according to recipients of those funds. The Trump administration has said thousands of migrant children who are seeking asylum or other legal status are unaccounted for and is trying to track them down. 'President Trump's committed to doing everything he can to find these kids, but I'm going to admit to you right now that's the toughest job of the three things he wants me to do. That's the toughest part of it,' White House border czar Tom Homan told a special joint session of the Arizona legislature this month. Experts argue that cutting federal funds for key services runs counter to that effort, taking away the people who are helping them through the immigration system, and that includes reporting to the government. Flores tells the story of the cartoon cat, known as Fulanito to children 12 years old and under. Fulanito, in Flores' story time, crosses into the United States and eventually goes before an immigration judge, and his attorney helps him secure immigration relief. For teenagers, the group describes the immigration court process through a soccer analogy. Organizations who work with migrant children often have to be creative to get them to open up. Staffers use coloring books, fidget toys and stress balls. 'We'll often color with children. We'll pull out a page for ourselves and color while we speak with them. It's hard to talk about heavy things while you're just staring at each other in the face,' said Scott Bassett, managing attorney of the children's program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. Young likened her offices to a nursery school. The lesson: how to fight your deportation proceeding. 'We'll have toddlers running all over the place, and my staff is explaining to them, using toys, crayons, chalkboards, what their rights are in the immigration system. And it's both something that's both very poignant, it's very joyful, but there's also a tremendous sense of gravity to it,' Young said. Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, which also works with unaccompanied children, uses handmade toy sets representing a courtroom for one-on-one legal screenings with kids. Kids in Need of Defense puts on puppet shows. Ages range, but the importance of immigration proceedings remain the same for all who go before an immigration judge – who ultimately decides if someone stays in the United States or is removed. 'I was in a court last summer where a three-year-old was in proceedings. He played with his toy car in the aisle of the courtroom until he was called, and then a young woman picked him up and brought him to the front of the courtroom,' Young said. 'I can tell you, I knew that child knew something dramatic was about to happen. He started crying. He was inconsolable at that point,' she added. In a recent court filing submitted as part of the ongoing lawsuit over terminating of funds, the Young Center's child advocates cited 'children as young as five years old sitting at tables by themselves in front of judges.' 'During the days immediately following the termination of funding, Child Advocates observed immigration judges learning for the first time at court hearings that funding for legal representation and friend of court services for unaccompanied children had been terminated,' the filings read. 'Upon arriving at court, children also learned for the first time that they would not have an attorney to represent them. In one court, Young Center Child Advocates observed a 14-year-old girl break down in tears in the court's lobby when she was told that she would not have a lawyer and would need to stand up in court all alone,' it continued. The Health and Human Services Department's Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with the care of unaccompanied migrant children until they are released to a sponsor in the United States, such as a relative or family friend. The agency recently rolled out multiple new policies regarding the release of children to sponsors that make it more difficult for kids to be reunited with their guardians. Trump officials have argued the additional vetting of sponsors is necessary to ensure the child's safety. But experts describe it as a dramatic shift that is likely to keep children in custody longer. 'ORR has recently imposed a series of draconian sponsor vetting requirements, including restrictive ID requirements, universal fingerprinting and DNA testing,' said Neha Desai, managing director of children's human rights and dignity at the National Center for Youth Law. 'This has made it nearly impossible for children in ORR custody to be released if their sponsor is undocumented or if the sponsor lives with people who are undocumented – even if the child is seeking release to their parent,' she added. Meanwhile, in some courtrooms, cases are being sped up to be resolved in a matter of weeks. In a New York courtroom on Monday, an immigration judge presided over a group of seven to 10 unaccompanied minors – ranging from ages 6 to 17 and most without legal representation. They appeared virtually from government custody. The judge guided the children through the basics of the immigration court process. 'Just because you can be removed doesn't mean you need to be,' Judge Jennifer Durkin told them, emphasizing that their individual stories mattered. She acknowledged the intimidating nature of the proceedings, adding: 'My job is to listen to why you came to the United States.' The minors, who currently reside in a government-run shelter in Brooklyn, appeared attentive. At moments, the seriousness of the hearing gave way to childhood – one boy let out a few playful giggles during the judge's questioning. Two children were in the process of reunification with family members. One, a young girl with cerebral palsy who is currently hospitalized, was represented by counsel. Her attorney informed the judge that she was being reunited with her mother. The six-year-old, the youngest in attendance, was also represented by counsel. His attorney said he was in the process of being reunited with his maternal grandmother. All the children were scheduled for a second hearing in June or July, giving those without counsel roughly two months to find legal representation.
NBC News
15-04-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Trump officials are using federal agencies to make life in the U.S. untenable for undocumented immigrants
The Trump administration is waging a concerted pressure campaign against undocumented immigrants — as well as hundreds of thousands here legally whose status it is trying to revoke. The measures threaten to make daily life more untenable for millions as President Donald Trump aims to carry out the immigrant purging he promised during his campaign. Trump has escalated his clampdown on immigrants beyond what was done during his first presidential term, which included separating children from their parents at the border, working to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico and curbing legal immigration through fewer visas and refugee admissions. This time around, on top of immigration raids and arrests, the administration is inflicting hardship on immigrants by pulling multiple levers of government to undercut their day-to-day lives. The administration is threatening criminal charges against immigrants without legal status who do not register with the government. It has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to previously confidential taxpayer information to locate immigrants and canceled Social Security numbers of thousands of immigrants by marking 'illegal immigrants' as being dead. Officials have canceled parole that the Biden administration granted to some groups. A federal judge has blocked the revocations temporarily. 'What we are seeing now is this full-court press by the government on immigration,' said Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a nonprofit immigrant rights advocacy organization whose funding to provide legal help to unaccompanied immigrant children Trump cut. The many actions are all parts of the administration's strategy to subtract as many immigrants from the United States as possible without having to go through more cumbersome deportation processes. The Trump actions build on an 'attrition through enforcement' strategy tried in 2010 with state anti-immigration laws, a strategy pushed by Kris Kobach, a former attorney general of Kansas who has championed conservative causes. Data obtained by NBC News show s that the Trump administration's deportations are running slightly behind deportations under President Joe Biden at the same time last year, even though Trump has made mass deportations one of his main priorities since he assumed office. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made it clear recently what level of departures the administration wants to see. At a recent Cabinet meeting, she said, 'We got 20, 21 million people that need to go home." Republicans and conservatives have long used about 20 million as the number of undocumented people in the country, though longtime analyses have pegged the number at closer to 11 million to 12 million. As is evident in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Maryland man who a Justice Department official said was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador — the administration is willing to push the edge of the legal envelope to meet its mass deportation goal. At a contentious hearing Tuesday, a U.S. district judge ordered the administration to provide evidence of any steps it has taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. "Over 77 million people delivered a resounding Election Day mandate in November to secure our borders, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and enforce our immigration laws," White House spokesman Kush Desai told NBC News in a statement. "The Trump administration is aligned on a whole-of-government approach to deliver on this mandate to once again put Americans and America First.' He did not respond to questions about criticism of the administration's actions or about any spillover effects on U.S. citizens. 'Taking people's legal status away' White House pr ess s ecretary Karoline Leavitt announced T uesday that T rump would sign an order preventing undocumented immigrants from getting Social Security benefits. But undocumented immigrants, and many people legally working, are already prohibited from receiving Social Security payouts or Medicare, said Marielena Hincapié, a distinguished immigration fellow and visiting scholar at Cornell Law School. She said Trump's latest order is "continued fearmongering and disinformation because, in fact, undocumented immigrants pay into Social Security but are never eligible to get those benefits." "On the one hand, the rhetoric of Trump has been about focusing on the undocumented immigrants and the worst 'criminals,' etc., but what we've actually seen from a policymaking perspective is they are actually taking people's legal status away," Hincapié said. There are immigrants in the United States with different forms of legal status, such as Temporary Protected Status or work authorization that was granted while they were awaiting asylum claim outcomes, which makes them eligible to apply for Social Security numbers. But getting Social Security numbers does not mean they are eligible for benefits, Hincapié said. "There are separate laws dating all the way to the 1996 welfare reform law that indicate who is eligible for what program, and for most people, you have to have been a legal permanent resident — a green card holder — for at least five years to be a qualified legal immigrant that is eligible for certain benefits," she said. The administration has threatened penalties against undocumented immigrants 14 and older who fail to register with the government and carry proof they registered with them. To register, they must fill out a form that asks them not only about any crimes they may have been arrested for or charged with, but also any they committed but for which they were not prosecuted, said Bill Hing, founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. The law to register has existed for decades but had not previously b e en e nforced. Hing questioned how Trump would enforce the required registration, because, he said, trying to get someone indicted for not carrying registration papers would complicate and lengthen a deportation process. He acknowledged that the administration might try to make an example of a case or two. But the requirement "is a mechanism to induce people, to coerce people, into exposing themselves," he said. In addition, Hing said, if he were representing people arrested for failing to register, he would argue they have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, since they are asked to admit to crimes when they fill out the forms. "I don't know about you, but I've jaywalked. I've sped," he said. "I think someone being prosecuted has a very good Fifth Amendment argument not to register." While the immigration crackdown actions are aimed at immigrants, they are affecting citizens, too. In early April, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner posted on social media that he had directed HUD offices to ensure HUD programs do not benefit undocumented immigrants. People here illegally cannot get federal subsidized housing. But an estimated 25,000 families in public housing include at least one U.S. citizen and at least one person without legal immigration status, according to the National Housing Law Project, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization. The citizen would be eligible for the housing. Marie Claire Tran-Leung, an attorney for the National Housing Law Project, said Trump and Turner are trying to deploy HUD "to scare immigrant families into self-evicting." Whether the administration's measures will force out enough immigrants to satisfy Trump and his base is unknown. But Hincapié said that with the administration moving 'so rapidly' and in a 'chaotic way,' some U.S. citizens may get caught in the immigration dragnet. For instance, some could end up wrongly classified as dead and their Social Security numbers put in the agency's death file, she said. "Are they going to do the same thing they are doing with Kilmar [Abrego Garcia] of saying, 'Oops, sorry, we made a mistake and we can't do anything about it now'?"
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Chaos' Looms For Unaccompanied Kids As Trump Cancels Funding For Their Lawyers
The Trump administration is stripping funding for legal representation from tens of thousands of children who are unaccompanied migrants in the United States, a move immigration lawyers warn violates their legal rights and will leave minors vulnerable to abuse. 'Picture yourself thrown into a detention center in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, where you don't understand that country's complex legal system, only to be told that now you must fend for yourself, assert your rights and seek whatever protections that country might offer you,' Jennie Giambastiani, a retired immigration judge, said Tuesday during a call organized by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. 'Now picture yourself as a child in that situation,' she added. Government-funded attorneys changed that dynamic, Giambastiani said, because they worked hard 'to make sure that the children understood the proceedings and could present their claims in court.' Most unaccompanied children can't afford to hire their own legal representation. Without those lawyers, Giambastiani said separately, the immigration courts would be thrown into 'chaos': 'The judge won't have any sense that this child understands why [they're] there in court.' The Trump administration has decided to cancel $200 million in annual funding for legal representation for unaccompanied minors, ABC News first reported Friday, citing an internal Trump administration memo. The New York Times matched that report. According to ABC, the cut ended funding for the recruitment of attorneys to represent migrant children, though it did not cut informational presentations for children that are delivered in detention centers. Notably, the administration had previously issued a stop-work order concerning the same services last month but reversed it a few days later. Now, the legal representation funding is apparently being slashed altogether. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is housed within the Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for overseeing the care of unaccompanied migrant children, including in contracted shelters, did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment. But the federal webpage for the contract now shows that it was 'terminated for convenience' on Friday. And the Acacia Center for Justice, which runs the Unaccompanied Children Program that provides the legal services in question — and which serves 26,000 children through a network of organizations — confirmed the cut in a statement Friday. 'The administration's decision to partially terminate this program flies in the face of decades of work and bipartisan cooperation spent ensuring children who have been trafficked or are at risk of trafficking have child-friendly legal representatives protecting their legal rights and interests,' the group said. By Monday, over 100 organizations involved in Acacia's Unaccompanied Children Program signed onto a statement opposing the cut. 'Abandoning [children] while fast-tracking their deportation cases will lead to mass due process violations and wrongful denials of protection,' Christine Lin, director of training and technical assistance at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, said in the statement. 'In cases with life-or-death stakes, this will mean children being deported to countries where they face grave harm. We urge the administration to reverse this decision and immediately restore legal services for unaccompanied children.' 'This brazen, heartless act endangers children's lives,' said Ashley Harrington, managing attorney of the children's program at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, or RMIAN. 'RMIAN represents child survivors of trafficking, abuse and trauma, including children as young as 2 years old,' Harrington said. 'Children cannot be expected to navigate the harsh and complicated immigration legal system without an attorney. This administration wants to force us to abandon them to face ICE and the immigration courts alone. But we will continue to stand in solidarity with these children and fight to protect their rights to legal representation.' The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act requires the government to provide legal representation for minors to the 'greatest extent practicable,' the Times noted. The paper cited American Immigration Council data showing that children appear in immigration court 95% of the time when represented by an attorney, as opposed to 33% of the time without one. Funding for the legal representation for unaccompanied minors had been continuously renewed since 2005, El Pais noted. Fifty-seven percent of unaccompanied children with pending immigration cases had legal counsel in 2024, according to the Acacia Center for Justice. And representation makes a major difference: Unaccompanied children with legal representation at some point during their cases were more than seven times as likely to receive an outcome that let them stay in the United States, a 2021 Vera Institute of Justice report found. The cuts are just one of several steps the Trump administration has taken targeting undocumented youth. The administration now also allows the Office for Refugee Resettlement to share information about children's sponsors' immigration status with law enforcement, Reuters reported — raising concerns that family members could be discouraged from sponsoring relatives due to fears over deportation. The cuts to legal defense funding for immigrant children are all the more shocking in light of President Donald Trump's fixation on 325,000 migrant children that he has asserted are 'slaves, sex slaves or dead.' The false claim is apparently in reference to a 2024 report that found that 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for immigration court hearings between fiscal years 2019 and 2023; the same report counted 291,000 children to whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement had not yet served notices to appear for court dates. Setting aside that the time period covered both the Trump and Biden administrations, these children were not presumed 'lost,' let alone trafficked. Rather, those figures represent more of a 'paperwork issue,' Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, now a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told the BBC in November. 'When you hear the phrase 'missing,' you think that there is a child that someone is trying to find and can't,' he said. 'That's not the case here. The government has not made any effort to find these children.' Still, migrant children are known to be vulnerable to both sexual abuse and labor exploitation. And the Trump administration's decision to strip migrant children of their legal representation makes them more susceptible to such harm, advocates say. 'I've seen how, without a legal advocate representing their interests, unaccompanied children can really get lost,' Nick Cuneo, a doctor who has worked with unaccompanied children, said on the Amica call. 'Legal representatives are often on the frontline of kids disclosing what's happening to them,' he added. 'As we know, kids without parental figures or close guardians can be subject to predation, and there have been reports of labor trafficking and so forth in the United States with this population in particular that I have seen bear out in anecdotes. Often, attorneys are the ones who are able to pick up on when a child is being mistreated or abused.' 'It's hard to rationalize any way that makes sense,' Cuneo said, referring to the administration's decision to remove an 'extra layer of protection' for unaccompanied children. Jesús Güereca, a managing attorney at Estrella del Paso in El Paso, Texas, said on the call that migrant children represented by attorneys 'have that trust in us, so they're able to tell us [about things that are happening to them], and we're able to do something about that.' 'Inside of a shelter, our primary goal is to keep the children safe,' Güereca said. 'That's what this funding does. It helps keep the children safe. We're an extra set of eyes, an extra set of ears, an extra set of adults that care about these children.' 'Without this funding, that's going away.' Columbia Student Sought By ICE Sues Trump Over Deportation Efforts Gay Venezuelan Makeup Artist Among Hundreds Deported Without Due Process U.S. Government Cannot Deport Georgetown Scholar Until Court Rules, Judge Orders A Timeline Of The Legal Wrangling And Deportation Flights After Trump Invoked The Alien Enemies Act Trump Administration Deports Hundreds Of Immigrants Even As A Judge Orders Their Removals Be Stopped
