"I Consider This a War on Children”
"In the United States, if you are charged with a crime and cannot afford a lawyer, you are guaranteed a public defender. This is not the case in immigration court, even for young children who arrive in the country alone. More than a third of unaccompanied immigrant children do not have a lawyer to represent them in deportation proceedings.
Congress has in the past made some attempts to address this problem. In 2008, lawmakers passed legislation requiring the government to provide lawyers for migrant children “to the greatest extent practicable.” After this mandate, the Unaccompanied Children Program, which provides protections to migrant children, began to fund more robust legal services for child clients. The federal program now disburses funds to a constellation of nonprofits and law firms across the country that represent children.
The Unaccompanied Children Program is funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Although unaccompanied children typically spend time in the custody of ICE and other branches of the Department of Homeland Security, by law, they ultimately fall under the charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Under the Trump administration, the legal aid program has been under attack. Shortly after taking office last year, President Donald Trump froze funding for it entirely. A judge blocked the move, restoring the program, but it was only a temporary reprieve.
As the Lever revealed in the fall, the Department of Health and Human Services subsequently developed plans to privatize the program, taking it out of the hands of nonprofits that had historically run it and handing the reins to a private company, an ICE technology contractor.
It is not yet clear whether that company, ICF, will ultimately secure the new contract. But it was during this bidding process — which is still ongoing — that the Trump administration began demanding that attorneys in the program disclose detailed data about the legal cases of migrant children they’re representing, which would give the federal government insight into their asylum claims, case status, and lawyers’ defense strategies.
Indeed, until a federal judge stepped in, the Department of Homeland Security was telling children — even those pursuing asylum claims and fleeing violence — to self-deport or face extended detention. “I consider this a war on children,” one longtime immigration lawyer said of the tactics."
~ Katya Schwenk
"Trump Is Pressing Lawyers to Share Info on Migrant Children"
https://jacobin.com/2026/06/migrant-children-lawyers-trump-ice
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