ABA responds to federal cuts to legal services for unaccompanied children
Unaccompanied migrant children await processing in a Department of Homeland Security holding facility in Donna, Texas, in 2021. The ABA has assisted unaccompanied children at the Texas border since 2005. (Photo by Dario Lopez-Mills/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The ABA is calling on lawyers to urge the Trump administration to reinstate full funding for legal services for tens of thousands of children who entered the United States alone.
The Trump administration on Friday unexpectedly terminated funding for direct legal representation for more than 26,000 children who are in or have been released from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement custody.
An ABA news release is here. The Associated Press and the New York Times have additional coverage.
“Abruptly ending the program today, without appearing to consider how children who are currently represented or how court proceedings will be impacted, is deeply troubling and could leave thousands of immigrant children—many of whom have already experienced severe trauma and violence—vulnerable to further harm,” according to the ABA, which added that some children are as young as toddlers.
The Acacia Center for Justice contracts with the federal government to provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children through a national network of organizations, including the ABA Commission on Immigration. These services include helping children better understand their legal options and navigate complex immigration court proceedings. They also protect them from being trafficked, abused or exploited in the United States.
Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, said in a statement Friday the Trump administration’s decision “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.”
Safeguarding vulnerable children
The Commission on Immigration has managed programs that serve unaccompanied children along the border through its South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project in Harlingen, Texas, since 2005 and its Immigration Justice Project in San Diego since 2024. It also launched the Children’s Immigration Law Academy, an expert legal resource center that focuses on children’s immigration law, in Houston in 2015.
Providing representation to unaccompanied children helps protect their due process rights and ensure that their immigration proceedings are fair and efficient, according to the ABA’s press release. It also alleviates undue burdens on the justice system.
“Recent policy changes in the United States have had an impact on how immigrants—particularly unaccompanied children—are able to navigate a complex legal system,” said Michelle Jacobson, the chair of the Commission on Immigration, in a statement provided to the ABA Journal. “Some may now face these challenges without access to pro bono legal assistance or certain procedural safeguards.”
Jacobson added that “it’s important for the public to be aware of how these developments could affect vulnerable members of our communities and to work together to ensure every child has an opportunity to be heard in court.”
Members of the legal profession should ask their elected officials to urge the Trump administration to renew the federal legal services program for unaccompanied children, the ABA said. The association also wants to encourage these officials to oppose other efforts to restrict unaccompanied children’s access to legal representation and information.
This is the second time that the Trump administration has moved to end legal services for unaccompanied children. According to NBC News, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued an abrupt stop-work order to lawyers working with unaccompanied children last month. It rescinded the order a few days later.
To support the ABA’s work, donations can be made to the Commission on Immigration or its separate projects through this website.
See also:
Behind the scenes as the ABA reacts to DOJ’s order to stop providing legal support to immigrants
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