The Trump administration has reduce funding to this system that gives authorized illustration to tens of hundreds of unaccompanied migrant kids, in accordance with a memo issued Friday by the Inside Division, which handles contracts for the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement.
In keeping with the memo obtained by ABC Information, organizations that collectively obtain over $200 million in federal grants have been instructed on Friday that the contract was partially terminated, ending the funding for authorized illustration and for the recruitment of attorneys to symbolize migrant kids.
The one funding that is still from the contract is for “Know Your Rights” informational displays which might be given to unaccompanied migrant kids in detention facilities.
“The federal government reserves the fitting to terminate this contract, or any half hereof, for its sole comfort,” the memo says. “Within the occasion of such termination, the Contractor shall instantly cease all work hereunder and shall instantly trigger any and all of its suppliers and subcontractors to stop work.”
At present, 26,000 migrant kids obtain authorized illustration by the funding.
A consultant for the Division of Heath and Human Providers, which oversees the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement, didn’t reply to a request for remark from ABC Information.
Final month, the Trump administration issued the same memo ordering organizations to instantly cease work on the $200 million contract — however later rescinded the order.
Migrants and asylum seekers wait in line to obtain lunch on the Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones migrant shelter, which is presently housing about 60 individuals from Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, Feb. 23, 2025.
Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters
ABC Information has reported on how hundreds of unaccompanied kids are representing themselves in immigration court docket resulting from a scarcity of attorneys. In 2023, solely 56% of unaccompanied minors in immigration courts have been represented by counsel, in accordance with knowledge from the Division of Justice.
For unaccompanied minors, having an lawyer might be the determinative issue as to whether or not they get to remain within the U.S. or are compelled to return to their house nation, consultants say.
Michael Lukens, the manager director for the Amica Heart, which represents migrant kids within the Washington, D.C., space, known as the halting of funding “illegal.”
“It’s significantly merciless to make kids go to court docket alone, and it’s a persevering with enlargement of Trump’s struggle in opposition to immigrants,” Lukens mentioned. “And it is unhappy that we’re now at some extent the place he has set his sights on kids.”
