A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian on Tuesday.
The Republican administration terminated a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice on March 21. The Acacia Center provides legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18 through a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the center.
Eleven subcontractor groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys. The groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel.
“Pursuant to these programs, nonprofit legal service providers across the country meet with unaccompanied children within days of their arrival in the U.S. to provide Know Your Rights presentations and legal screenings,” said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which joined the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs said some of their clients are too young to speak and others are too traumatized and do not know English.
“They use puppets and cartoons to help children as young as toddlers understand what it means to be in immigration removal proceedings,” said the ImmDef statement. “They further represent them in immigration court and on applications for affirmative relief and advocate for the children on aspects like their well-being and care.”
The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 created special protections for migrant children who cannot navigate a complex immigration system on their own.
The law requires the government to ensure “to the greatest extent practicable” that all children entering the country alone have legal counsel to represent them in proceedings and to “protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.”
The programs have had bipartisan support for over two decades, as Congress has expressly recognized the unique vulnerability of unaccompanied children.
“Without these programs, immigrant children and babies will lose legal representation, leading to deportations and denials of relief without due process, on top of causing chaos and delays in the immigration system,” said ImmDef.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco granted a temporary restraining order late Tuesday. She wrote that advocates raised legitimate questions about whether the administration violated the 2008 law, warranting a return to the status quo while the case continues.
The order takes effect Wednesday and runs through April 16.
“The Court additionally finds that the continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system,” she wrote.
It is the third legal setback in less than a week for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
On Friday, a federal judge in Boston said people with final deportation orders must have a “meaningful opportunity” to argue against being sent to a country other than their own. On Monday, another federal judge in San Francisco put on hold plans to end protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including 350,000 whose legal status was scheduled to expire April 7.
Defendants, which include the Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Refugee Resettlement, said that taxpayers have no obligation to pay the cost of direct legal aid to migrant children at a time when the government is trying to save money. They also said district courts have no jurisdiction over a contract termination that would have expired at the end of March.
Acacia is under a new contract with the government to provide legal orientations, including “know your rights” clinics.
But plaintiffs said they are not asking for the contract to be restored; rather, they want a return to the status quo, which is spending $5 billion that Congress appropriated so children have representation, said Karen Tumlin with the Justice Action Center at a court hearing Tuesday.
She said the administration cannot simply zero out funding without providing direction on who will help these children.
“They need to make sure to the greatest extent practicable that there is a plan,” she said.
Jonathan Ross with the U.S. Department of Justice said the government is still funding legally required activities, such as the “know your rights” clinics, and that legal clinics can offer their services without charge.
“They’re still free to provide those services on a pro bono basis,” he said.
Judge Martínez-Olguín is a Biden appointee.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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