United States President Donald Trump's administration announced that it was ending a program that supported roughly 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children by providing them with legal aid.
Some of the affected kids are too young to read or speak, and some are or were under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The children, about 4,000 of whom live in California, are at risk of deportation. The latest development comes as most do not have parents or legal guardians in the United States.
Cutting Legal Aid Support for Unaccompanied Immigrant Children
On Tuesday, the Interior Department ordered the Acacia Center for Justice "to stop work." The latter is responsible for coordinating the federally funded program that provides financial compensation for attorneys. The department's letter cited contracting rules to justify the suspension of the program, according to the LA Times.
Following the announcement, advocates have called the decision shocking, warning that suspending legal aid programs would only put minors, who are already at risk of child trafficking, further into harm's way.
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Several organizations confirmed the Interior Department's order to stop work, including the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, and the Acacia Center for Justice.
The chief program officer for ImmDef, Yliana Johansen-Mendez, said that the latest decision is "abhorrent," adding that advocates had been expecting to experience some cutbacks to these services. However, they did not expect such a sudden and total suspension of all services, The Guardian reported.
Young Clients Who Are at Risk
Some of ImmDef's clients are children who are only a few months old, school-aged, and teenagers. The majority of the kids are at risk and have been abused either within their home countries or in the U.S. Some of them are also known to be victims of trafficking.
The announcement of the end of legal aid comes as many clients have hearings scheduled for the coming days or weeks. This is noteworthy because failure to appear in court could result in an immediate removal order.
During a news conference on Wednesday, immigration attorney Daniela Hernandez, who provides free legal services to roughly 60 kids in Pasadena, California, said that some of her clients, who are as young as two years old, have court hearings scheduled as early as Friday.
She questioned what the two-year-old was supposed to do without help from her attorney and who would speak for her in court. Hernandez said that the work stoppage forces these children to navigate a very complex legal immigration system by themselves, as per the Associated Press.
