Judge orders White House to restore legal aid to unaccompanied migrant children

A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.

The Republican administration on 21 March terminated a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which provides legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18 through a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the center. Eleven subcontractor groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys; Acacia is not a plaintiff.

Those groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel.

US district judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco granted a temporary restraining order late on Tuesday. She wrote that advocates raised legitimate questions about whether the administration violated the 2008 law, warranting a return to the status quo while the case continues. The order will take effect Wednesday and runs through 16 April.

“The Court additionally finds that the continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system,” she wrote.

It is the third legal setback in less than a week for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, though all may prove temporary as the lawsuits advance. On Friday, a federal judge in Boston said people with final deportation orders must have a “meaningful opportunity” to argue against being sent to a country other than their own.

On Monday, another federal judge in San Francisco put on hold plans to end protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including 350,000 whose legal status was scheduled to expire on 7 April.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which created special protections for migrant children who, especially, cannot navigate a complex immigration system on their own. Plaintiffs said some of their clients are too young to speak and others are too traumatized and do not know English. Such children are also vulnerable to mistreatment and exploitation.

Defendants, which include the Department of Health and Human Services and its office of refugee resettlement, said that taxpayers have no obligation to pay the cost of direct legal aid to migrant children at a time when the government is trying to save money. They also said district courts have no jurisdiction over a contract termination that would have expired at the end of March.

Acacia is under a new contract with the government to provide legal orientations, including “know your rights” clinics.

But plaintiffs said they are not asking for the contract to be restored. Rather, they want a return to the status quo, which includes $5bn in funding that Congress appropriated so children have representation, Karen Tumlin of the Justice Action Center said in court.

She said the administration cannot simply cancel funding. “They need to make sure to the greatest extent practicable that there is a plan,” she said.

Jonathan Ross with the US Department of Justice said the government is still funding legally required activities, such as the “know your rights” clinics, and that legal clinics can offer their services without charge. “They’re still free to provide those services on a pro bono basis,” he said.