The Trump administration has reduced funds to the program that provides legal representation to tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, according to a memorandum issued Friday by the Department of Interior, which manages contracts for the refugee resettlement office.
According to the memorandum obtained by ABC News, organizations that collectively receive more than $ 200 million in federal subsidies were told on Friday that the contract was completed partially, ending the funds for legal representation and recruitment of lawyers to represent migrant children.
The only financing that remains of the contract is for informative presentations of “knowing their rights” granted to migrant children not accompanied in detention centers.
“The Government reserves the right to terminate this contract, or any part of the present, for its only convenience,” says the memorandum. “In the case of this termination, the contractor must immediately stop all the work below and immediately make all its suppliers and subcontractors stop working.”
Currently, 26,000 migrant children receive legal representation through financing.
A representative of the Department of Health and Human Services, who supervises the refugee resettlement office, did not respond to a request for ABC News comments.
Last month, the Trump administration issued a similar memorandum that ordered the organizations that immediately stopped the work in the $ 200 million contract, but then rescinded the order.
Migrants and asylum seekers wait in line to receive lunch in the refuge of migrants from Casa de la Misericordia and all nations, which currently houses about 60 people from Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, February 23, 2025.
Joel Angel Juárez/Reuters
ABC News has reported how thousands of unaccompanied children represent themselves in the Immigration Court due to the shortage of lawyers. In 2023, only 56% of unaccompanied minors in immigration courts were represented by a lawyer, according to data from the Department of Justice.
For unaccompanied minors, having a lawyer could be the determining factor in terms of whether they can remain in the United States or are forced to return to their country of origin, experts say.
Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Amica Center, which represents migrant children in the Washington area, DC, described the arrest of “illegal” financing.
“It is particularly cruel to make children go to court, and it is a continuous expansion of Trump’s war against immigrants,” Lukens said. “And it is sad that we are now at a point where he has put his gaze on children.”
