A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for legal aid services for unaccompanied migrant children.
Under the program, U.S. Health and Human Services provides millions in federal funding for attorneys to represent some 26,000 children in immigration court.
But the agency cut off most of the program in late March. Only a small portion that facilitates group Know Your Rights workshops to children in government custody remained funded.
Esther Sung is with the Justice Action Center — one of the groups filing suit to restore the contract in full.
“Kids as young as five months old who don’t have funded legal representation anymore. Notwithstanding the fact that Congress identified unaccompanied kids as a particularly vulnerable population that needs representation," she said.
She says the government is arguing it’s not obligated to provide that funding.
“First of all they’re arguing that funding legal representation for unaccompanied children is a discretionary matter and that the government can choose to fund or not fund legal representation for unaccompanied kids however they wish,” she said.
Sung’s suit cites the Anti-Trafficking Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires the government to “ensure, to the greatest extent practicable,” ensure unaccompanied children receive counsel in legal proceedings. In a Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, in San Francisco, said it raised valid questions about whether the law had been violated and ordered the funding restored until April 16th.
Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comments about the case or the government’s next steps.
