Last month, the Trump administration abruptly cut funding to legal aid nonprofits who represent unaccompanied migrant children in deportation hearings.
Now, the groups are suing the federal government.
In a cancellation order issued on March 21, the federal government told legal aid providers to “immediately stop work” on their ongoing deportation cases. The decision threatened to leave more than 26,000 children — some as young as 7 months old — without legal representation.
Have a tip? 📨
The Investigations Team at KPBS holds powerful people and institutions accountable. But we can’t do it alone — we depend on tips from the public to point us in the right direction. There are two ways to contact the I-Team.
For general tips, you can send an email to investigations@kpbs.org.
If you need more security, you can send anonymous tips or share documents via our secure Signal account at 619-594-8177.
To learn more about how we use Signal and other privacy protections, click here.
“We had hearings scheduled that same day that the order came out and over 25 hearings scheduled for the following week,” said Mickey Donovan-Kaloust, director of legal services for the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, one of dozens of organizations who lost funding.
Lawyers at Immigrant Defenders are still representing their child clients. But they don’t know when or if they will be paid for their work.
“It’s not possible for us to just not show up to hearings for child clients — that’s not something we can do ethically or morally,” Donovan-Kaloust said.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court, a coalition of 11 service providers pointed out that Congress already appropriated funding to deliver legal services to unaccompanied children.
They argue that the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires the government to “ensure to the greatest extent practicable” that all unaccompanied children receive legal representation in legal proceedings.
Unlike in the criminal court system, defendants in immigration court who cannot afford a lawyer do not get a public defender. People who cannot afford a lawyer or find one to represent them for free must represent themselves in court. As a result, unaccompanied minors without representation would have to navigate complex immigration proceedings on their own.
Other legal service providers noted that child clients are among the most vulnerable in the world. Some of their child clients flee from human trafficking and abuse. Lawyers worry that they could be revictimized if they’re forced to return home.
“They will be left defenseless in a labyrinthine immigration system, all but ensuring their deportation to danger, including falling into the hands of human traffickers and sexual predators,” the legal aid nonprofit Al Otro Lado said in a statement.
The idea of having young children represent themselves in legal proceedings “makes a mockery of the idea of due process,” Donovan-Kaloust said.
On Tuesday, service providers suing the government earned a small legal victory.
A federal judge granted them a temporary restraining order requiring the federal government to restore funding on a temporary basis until the federal lawsuit is resolved.
In her order, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California said withholding funding would cause “irreparable harm.”
“The court additionally finds that the continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system,” the judge wrote.
However, as of Friday, the federal government has not restored funding to the legal service providers.
“We still are in a holding pattern,” said Donovan-Kaloust. “We don’t know when funding will be restored at this point. So, we’re still in limbo.”
- Advocates urge San Diego Sheriff to reconsider stance against county sanctuary policy
- Immigration lawyers worried legal asylum seekers will self-deport after Trump administration email
- International students in San Diego caught up in ‘mass revocation of student visas'
- San Diego Zoo workers push for higher wages as executive pay skyrockets
