Trump administration cuts off legal aid program for unaccompanied immigrant children News
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Trump administration cuts off legal aid program for unaccompanied immigrant children

The Trump administration abruptly cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children on Tuesday, telling government-funded attorneys across the country they should immediately stop their work. The stop-work order effectively prevents immigrant children from having legal defense, leaving them to figure out how to navigate the American judicial system on their own.

Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), the largest legal service provider to unaccompanied children in Southern California and one of the non-profit organizations that received this email released a statement criticizing the decision: 

The safety and welfare of children in government custody should be the primary concern of our elected leaders. Today’s decision by the Trump administration to eliminate access to counsel for 26,000 children is an affront to American values. The Trump administration is abandoning children for the sake of politics and leaving kids to fend for themselves against our complex immigration system…  We will continue to fight for their right to legal representation and to uphold our ethical and professional obligations. We urge the government to restore services immediately to protect children’s rights. Our government will be judged by how it treats children in its care. By all standards, this administration is failing them and self-inflicting a black eye as the rest of the world watches.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement created the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program (UAC) in 2003 with a listed responsibility of “[e]nsuring, to the greatest extent practicable, that all unaccompanied alien children in custody have access to pro bono legal representation or counsel for immigration proceedings.” This latest move by the Trump administration was criticized by advocates as it leaves children in a vulnerable position with no substantial way to protect their rights. The Acacia Center for Justice urged the program’s restoration, stressing the essential work it provides to protect children.

The Interior Department and Health and Human Services run the UAC program, but have not updated the website or released a statement.

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