Current and former prosecutors are denouncing the Trump administration for fast-tracking the deportation of immigrant children, as a key contract for legal services is set to expire on Friday.
A series of federal laws has for decades shielded child immigrants from removal, either to protect their safety or to allow them to testify against abusers or human traffickers.
But the Trump administration has undermined those laws, immigrant advocates and prosecutors say, by directing immigration judges to fast-track deportation cases for minors and blocking their access to lawyers who might help them apply for several forms of relief from removal – including acting as witnesses in cases of human trafficking or domestic violence.
“By arresting and deporting survivors who have come forward and applied for protection, the Administration not only risks endangering the survivor and their family members, but the Government also sends a chilling message to the larger community: don’t call the police, don’t report crime – you or your loved ones will get deported,” reads a Wednesday letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 10 current and former prosecutors. “This undermines public safety for us all.”
The lawyers sent the letter to the DHS the day before the Trump administration stands to let lapse a contract that pays for legal services to tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors. The Trump administration stopped paying the contract in December, according to the contractor, Acacia Center for Justice. The federal government owes Acacia roughly $65m.
The Department of Health and Human Services, whose office of refugee resettlement is charged with caring for unaccompanied minors, has tried several times to establish a new contract for legal services, but those attempts have been blocked repeatedly through protests with the government accountability office, a spokesperson said.
“The office of refugee resettlement works to ensure the safety, well-being, and appropriate care of all children in its custody,” HHS wrote in a written statement. “ORR remains fully compliant with its legal and regulatory obligations and does not act in any way that could dissuade a child from seeking appropriate legal relief.”
“ORR offered Acacia the opportunity to receive a second bridge contract that included requirements to provide data on whom they represent and to bill the government when they submit applications for immigration relief,” the statement added. “Acacia declined that offer.”
Stripping legal protections from unaccompanied minors threatens to both put them in harm’s way and make it easier for abusers to evade justice, said Maggy Krell, a California assembly member who worked on human-trafficking cases over her two-decade career as a prosecutor.
“These crimes are vastly underreported, and now the government is setting up an additional barrier to threaten people with deportation if they have the courage to come forward,” said Krell, who signed the letter to the DHS. “It not only jeopardizes that person, it jeopardizes the entire prosecution.
“Many of these kids are trafficking victims and they deserve protections in federal law, at a minimum,” she added.
The Trump administration has been at odds with Acacia since last year, when HHS attempted to cancel the legal services contract to represent minors, only for a federal judge to order it reinstated later that year. Later, the Trump administration began pressing legal services providers to give up confidential information about clients.
Legal services providers have refused to do so, contending that giving up such information could violate attorney-client privilege. Multiple lawsuits in federal court seek to force ORR to pay for legal services already given to unaccompanied minors. A hearing on the issue is slated for 6 August, according to Notus.
But as the standoff draws on, legal providers have had little choice but to lay off or furlough lawyers who used to represent unaccompanied minors through the congressionally mandated program. Kids in Need of Defense, one of the legal non-profits that subcontracts with Acacia, announced last month that it will no longer work through the program, after racking up $20m in unpaid fees.
Meanwhile, ICE has pushed more aggressively to deport unaccompanied minors. Immigration judges have issued roughly 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders monthly against unaccompanied minors since Trump retook the White House, according to ProPublica – a figure about four times the rate from his first term.
“These laws were enacted to protect survivors. What ICE is doing right now is completely upending that,” Krell said. “We’re talking about really traumatized kids here and other crime victims who are asking for help – and we’re locking them up and deporting them.”
