WASHINGTON— More than 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant youth remain at risk of losing their legal representation, one month after the Trump administration ended a federal contract with an organization that provided legal services to migrant children, advocates and attorneys said Tuesday.

Most of those children who initially had attorneys through funding provided by Congress still have access to lawyers because the Acacia Center for Justice and its network of 100 nonprofits have continued to represent the children without pay. 

But unaccompanied immigrant children who have been placed into federal custody since the contract expired after July 31 are likely without attorneys as they appear in immigration court, said Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Amica Center for Justice, which is part of Acacia’s network. 

“Many nonprofits are not taking on new cases,” Lukens said. “We have not closed any case of a child we were already representing — that obviously is not a sustainable model. We feel both ethically and morally obligated to continue as long as we can.”

Without a lawyer, fewer than 10% of immigrant children win the right to remain in the United States while their cases go through immigration court.

Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, the deputy director of Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, said the organization is currently representing 600 children, and cannot represent several children who have recently arrived in Arizona, where the group is based. 

“This is something that is happening across the nation,” she said. 

Contract expired

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied children, let a contract with Acacia for legal services expire July 31. 

The center has a network of roughly 100 organizations it works with that provide legal aid and representation to immigrant children across the country in their immigration court appearances. Acacia has provided legal services for unaccompanied minors for decades. 

Additionally, since December, HHS has not released $65 million that Congress appropriated for legal representation of unaccompanied children in immigration cases, meaning that Acacia and its legal providers have gone for months without reimbursement.

Leaders of Acacia have said the funds were withheld because attorneys refused to hand over to the Trump administration sensitive case data from the unaccompanied children, such as medical records and the types of legal relief the minors are seeking. 

After the contract expired in July, HHS initially awarded a single $150 million contract to a small Texas firm, headed by a former Trump official who served during the first administration. But the law firm, which only had two attorneys that specialized in immigration law and primarily focused on regulatory work, backed out of the contract. 

New contract

In August, the Trump administration awarded a $158 million no-bid contract to a controversial anti-human-trafficking organization called Our Rescue, a Utah-based company that was previously known as Operation Underground Railroad. 

The group was founded by Tim Ballard, who presented it as an “anti-sex-trafficking” organization. The group was featured in the conservative film “Sound of Freedom” that promoted several QAnon conspiracy theories. 

After the movie’s release, Ballard was accused of sexual misconduct by several employees and has since left the organization. 

Our Rescue now specializes in working with law enforcement related to child trafficking cases and is run by a former Department of Homeland Security official, Derek Benner. It’s unclear if there are any immigration attorneys on staff and the group does not have a history of providing legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant youth in immigration court.

Our Rescue did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

Bilal Askaryar, the communications director for Acacia, said Our Rescue has not been in contact with Acacia to transfer over case information.

Avila-Cimpeanu said she has also not heard from Our Rescue to start the transition process for representing the children’s cases. 

“I think it’s very unclear what their role is,” she said. 

The Our Rescue contract will run from Aug. 7 until Feb. 6, 2027, according to its award.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services plans to award a $150 million contract to a small Texas firm — with no specialty in immigration law and run by a former Trump official — to provide legal services to tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children, according to a Wednesday pre-published notice in the Federal Register. 

The notice, which HHS is scheduled to officially publish Thursday, comes after the department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied children, let a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice for such services expire. The center has a network of roughly 100 organizations it works with that provided legal aid and representation to immigrant children across the country, including in immigration court appearances.

Lawyers from Acacia said the Trump administration did not renew the contract because attorneys refused to hand over sensitive information about their clients. 

Burke Law Group, a Houston-based law firm founded in 2023, “advises companies on complex environmental, regulatory, and enforcement matters,” according to its website.

The firm will be tasked with representing as many as 24,000 unaccompanied immigrant children through their court proceedings.

The founder, Marcella Burke, during the first Donald Trump administration worked at the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior. From 2017-2018 she served as the deputy general counsel for EPA and from 2018 to 2020 worked at Interior as deputy solicitor and senior counsel, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The Burke Law Group did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

Of the nearly 30 lawyers on the law firm’s website, only two list experience in immigration and asylum law.

The multi-million-dollar contract is set to start Aug. 15 and run through August 14, 2027. Because it’s a “single-source cooperative agreement” contract, it gives the law firm the flexibility to subcontract work out to other firms at its discretion.

Since Monday, unaccompanied minors have lost access to their legal representation. Without it, fewer than 10% of immigrant children win the right to remain in the United States while their case goes through immigration court. 

A handful of legal organizations have been able to dip into savings to continue legal coverage. But some have had to stop altogether, especially after the Trump administration since December has refused to reimburse more than $65 million in completed legal work.

A federal judge on Thursday is set to hear arguments whether to hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating an April 2025 court order that ordered the government to continue funding legal representation for unaccompanied children.

WASHINGTON — As many as 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children are at risk of losing their federally funded legal representation due to the Trump administration withholding appropriated funds, immigration attorneys warned Tuesday.

For more than six months, the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement has not released $65 million Congress appropriated for legal representation of unaccompanied children in immigration cases. That means children may have to press their immigration claims on their own, vastly raising the probability they will be deported, the attorneys said.

“Children are now facing the real possibility of representing themselves alone against experienced government attorneys,” Ana Devereaux, an attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said during a virtual press conference. 

Shaina Aber, the executive director for Acacia Center for Justice, a national group that partners with at least 100 legal organizations to provide services to children, said the lack of funding is already being felt. Several of the group’s partners have declined to continue the partnerships because they have not been reimbursed, she said. 

Aber said the funds were withheld because attorneys refused to hand over to the administration sensitive case data from the unaccompanied children, such as medical records and the types of legal relief the minors are seeking. 

“These children should not, and should never be, leveraged in a political game,” she said. 

HHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

‘Children are children’

Without a lawyer, fewer than 10% of immigrant children win the right to remain in the United States while their case goes through immigration court, said Elizabeth Young, a former immigration judge. 

Some children going through the courts are too young to speak, she said during the press conference. 

“A legal system that values fairness cannot expect children to carry that burden alone,” Young said. 

Devereaux said the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center is operating on reserves and has continued to provide legal services for about 1,100 children. 

“Children are children, regardless of their nationality,” Devereaux said. 

Stripping away the legal services for children, Aber said, is “yet another system of mass deportations.”

Additionally, the Trump administration does not plan to renew its contract with Acacia, which ends July 31, Aber said. 

Instead, the administration is eyeing a small Texas state commission that aids low-income people with criminal defense to provide legal services for immigrant children. The commission does not have experience handling immigration cases or unaccompanied minors, Aber said. 

Lawmakers push to release funds

Democratic members of Congress have also called on the Trump administration to release the funds, which Congress approved. 

Last month, more than 70 lawmakers demanded that ORR reimburse the legal groups. 

“Ultimately, we are concerned that these payment delays may be an attempt to circumvent requirements that ORR continue funding legal services for unaccompanied children,” they wrote. “The federal government must meet its obligations under the law.”

Congress created the Unaccompanied Children Program, which, among other things, provides funding for legal representation of migrant children. Free legal representation is not generally provided for immigrants but there is a carveout for unaccompanied children. 

There are about 100 organizations across the U.S. that provide those legal services. 

The move from the Trump administration to withhold funds has sparked several lawsuits. Last year, a preliminary injunction was put in place that ordered the federal government to continue funding legal services for unaccompanied children. 

But advocates have not received any funds since December and were back in court this month. 

Last week, federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California probed whether the Trump administration should be held in contempt over the withholding of funds after 11 groups claimed they have still not received any reimbursements, according to El Paso Matters.

Those groups are the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, Estrella del Paso, Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Social Justice Collaborative and the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.