Trump strips nearly 30,000 migrant children of their lawyers to fast-track deportations

The Trump administration has intensified its crackdown on undocumented migrants and is now targeting immigration lawyers. The U.S. government has terminated contracts with hundreds of organizations that provide legal representation for unaccompanied minors. This decision leaves approximately 26,000 minors under the age of 18 — who arrived in the country in recent years — in legal limbo. In addition to canceling these contracts, the government has also threatened legal action against attorneys who continue fighting to help their clients remain in the United States.

“I still can’t believe what’s happening,” says Cristel Martínez, a Honduran lawyer who came to the United States when she was nine years old and has been representing immigration cases since 2018, during Donald Trump’s first presidency. “There were a lot of attacks back then, but nothing like this. We’re talking about the people who help process asylum applications,” she says by phone from Los Angeles.

Martínez and her team represent 325 minors, while other organizations defend thousands more unaccompanied immigrants. “What the government is saying is that children can defend themselves,” Martínez says. Among her clients is an 11-month-old baby who, obviously, cannot speak or communicate with her legal representative. Others are as young as five or seven, while some are 17.

Many of Martínez’s cases are highly complex, as U.S. immigration laws are notoriously complicated. The administration’s decision now forces tens of thousands of minors to navigate this legal labyrinth without counsel, making their deportation almost inevitable. “It’s been proven that individuals who have legal representation are more likely to attend their hearings and have a better chance of winning their cases,” says Martínez.

The decision to halt funding for hundreds of organizations and law firms breaks with a 20-year tradition. In 2005, Congress passed the Unaccompanied Migrant Minors Protection Act with bipartisan support, ensuring that the complex immigration system would not engulf the most vulnerable. The law placed newly arrived children under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services — now headed by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy.

The law prohibits migrant minors from being detained in the same detention centers as adults or juvenile offenders. It also explicitly states that the U.S. government must ensure that repatriation does not “endanger the life and safety” of the child. Section six of the act mandates that children must have “competent” legal counsel, specifying that this representation may be provided by qualified nonprofit organizations specializing in the care of migrant children.

Everything changed on Friday when the Trump administration announced it was cutting off funding that supports tens of thousands of immigration cases in the judicial system. The cancellation came a week before the contract’s scheduled expiration on Friday, even though it had been continuously renewed since 2005. Without this funding, lawyers no longer even have access to interpreters for their clients, the vast majority of whom do not speak English and come from Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

“We don’t know if they will cover the costs of closing cases, if we’ll have to transfer them, or if they will give people time to find another lawyer,” says Martínez, who has committed to continuing her work, at least for now, even without pay. “There are also ethical rules we must follow. We are, so to speak, bound to these cases, and we don’t know if immigration judges will understand that from one day to the next, we’re no longer there,” she adds.

‘Frivolous’ and ‘unreasonable’ work

Following the contract cancellations, the White House issued another document. The five-page memo, titled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court,” extended President Trump’s ongoing battle against judges and the judiciary, arguing that it was time to hold law firms and non-governmental organizations accountable for bringing cases against the government.

The immigration system is “replete with examples of unscrupulous behavior from attorneys and law firms,” the document states. “For instance, the immigration bar, and powerful Big Law pro bono practices, frequently coach clients to conceal their past or lie about their circumstances when asserting their asylum claims.”

The White House claims that many law firms sustain themselves by prolonging legal proceedings to receive additional public funding. It describes the work of immigration lawyers as “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexation litigation against the United States.”

In the memo, Trump instructs his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to “review conduct” of every law firm and attorney who has sued the federal government over the past eight years. If evidence of what the administration calls “misconduct” is found, those responsible will face penalties such as losing government contracts or the security clearances needed to litigate. Other sanctions have not been ruled out.

The crackdown on immigration lawyers has put the legal community on high alert. “President Trump‘s threats toward immigration lawyers are meant to scare us away from representing the most vulnerable in our society,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Legal Defense Center, in a statement on Sunday. “But he has failed. We will not be intimidated because we know that we stand with our clients and communities. We stand for the rule of law and justice for all. We stand confidently on the right side of history.”

The Immigrant Legal Defense Center, which represents dozens of advocacy groups, is working on a lawsuit that could be filed as early as this week to fight back against this unprecedented attack from the government.

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