1-year-old faced immigration court in Arizona without a lawyer. Advocates say it's part of trend

It's been a month since the Trump administration severed a multimillion-dollar contract with aid organizations representing unaccompanied children in immigration court.

Congress created the federal legal aid program almost two decades ago and has directed funds to it every year. But on July 31, the roughly $200 million annual contract to do that work came to an end.

Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu is the deputy director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which represents about 600 children in Arizona. She says her group will continue to represent those children, but without the government funding, they can’t take on new cases.

“What we’ve seen since spring of this year is an increase in the number of hearings children have to go to and an acceleration of the cases to get to that deportation point,” she said.

There are roughly 1,800 children in government custody nationwide, Avila-Cimpeanu says that includes dozens in Arizona — many of whom have not been given the Know Your Rights presentation required under federal trafficking laws. The legal aid groups estimate roughly 20,000 children have immigration cases pending in the U.S.

Avila-Cimpeanu says direct representation services for children have lapsed since the contract ended July 31, despite an agreement the Trump administration says it has with a group called the U.S. Commission for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

“They have been showing up to some detained children’s dockets and just showing up on camera, rarely speaking and sometimes not showing up at all. SO even some of the non-representational services such as Friend of Court are not being complied with,” she said during a press conference Tuesday.

During a hearing last month in Arizona, a 1-year-old boy and his mother appeared in court alone without a lawyer. Avila-Cimpeanu said although a USCRI representative was present, they did not speak up in any capacity.

The baby and his mother, a 17-year-old who is also an unaccompanied minor, appeared in court again at the end of August and were given an extension to file an asylum claim or face deportation.

USCRI did not respond to questions about that case or its role in immigration cases for unaccompanied children more broadly, and directed KJZZ to U.S. Health and Human Services, the government agency in charge of immigrant children.

As NPR reports, last month the Trump administration awarded a six-month, no-bid contract to Our Rescue, a Utah-based group headed by a former ICE officer, though it’s not clear whether the group has attorneys on staff, or whether they’ll provide direct representation.