Unaccompanied migrant children continue to face immigration judges without legal assistance despite a court order to resume the service.
More than a dozen nonprofit legal organizations filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration in March to renew $200 million in contracts needed to provide attorneys and other services for immigrant children who entered the U.S. alone or had become separated from their families.
Saying the groups have a strong case, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order April 1 requiring the resumption of legal aid to about 26,000 children navigating the U.S. immigration court system.
Araceli Martinez-Olguin
But the administration has yet to comply with the order, forcing very young children and older youth to attend legal proceedings alone, and pushing some legal aid groups to lay off employees, NBC News reported.
“In the two weeks since the funding for legal representation ended, advocates from the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights saw children as young as 5 sitting at tables alone facing judges,” according to the report. “They also saw a 14-year-old child break down in tears in a court lobby when she learned she had to stand alone in court without a lawyer.”
Judges in some situations have turned to case managers and others not trained in the law to answer questions, NBC News added.
“In one hearing, the judge failed to request an interpreter, despite the presence of many non-English-speaking children, according to the document. At another hearing, the child did not understand the complex proceedings, despite the presence of a Spanish interpreter, who at one point translated the judge’s instructions incorrectly, the center said in its filing.”
Instead of complying, the administration has asked the Martinez-Olguin to remove herself from the case and asked for a stay of her restraining order.
Lisa Murkowski
Nor has President Donald Trump heeded a bipartisan request to renew funding for the Unaccompanied Children Program.
“Terminating legal representation for these children means that toddlers will now face a courtroom and judge with no adult to advocate on their behalf. Children will be asked to make decisions about their legal rights well beyond their comprehension, with life-altering consequences,” U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Termination of the program, the senators wrote, “runs counter to the requirements of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, puts children directly at risk of trafficking and exploitation, and harms any hope of a fair legal process for thousands of vulnerable children.”
The bipartisan legislation was enacted in 2008 to strengthen U.S. efforts to combat human trafficking through prevention of exploitation, victim protection and prosecuting offenders.
The act also mandates “that all unaccompanied children have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation and trafficking,” the senators explained to Kennedy.
“Attorneys are one of unaccompanied children’s most critical lines of defense against traffickers and other bad actors.”
“Attorneys are one of unaccompanied children’s most critical lines of defense against traffickers and other bad actors. In many cases, an attorney may be the only adult in an unaccompanied child’s life to whom the child feels comfortable disclosing information about trafficking and exploitation, or who may have a way of knowing when a child ends up in dangerous circumstances,” they added.
Mazie Hirono
A group of 32 U.S. senators led by Ossoff and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, also pressed Kennedy last month to restore legal services for unaccompanied immigrant minors, Ossoff’s office reported separately.
The administration’s assault on migrant children follows an effort to deny legal aid to a broader array of undocumented immigrants.
Within days of Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered legal services providers to cease serving clients in immigration courts, including those facing deportation.
The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project announced it and eight other advocacy groups requested a temporary restraining order April 15 to restore the Counsel for Children Initiative, the Family Group Legal Orientation Program, the Immigration Court Helpdesk and other immigrant legal initiatives.
“These legal orientation programs are crucial, as they provide immigrants — the vast majority of whom are unrepresented, and many of whom are confused and traumatized, do not speak English, and lack any legal education — with essential information about their rights throughout the immigration process and deportation proceedings,” the group said.
The president also has threatened sanctions against attorneys and law firms he claims are engaging “in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation” on immigration and other issues.
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