Thousands of immigrant children risk losing lawyers after Trump aid cuts

A federal immigration officer waits for respondents to depart from their hearings to conduct targeted detainments at a US immigration court in New York City on 17 November 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters View image in fullscreen A federal immigration officer waits for respondents to depart from their hearings to conduct targeted detainments at a US immigration court in New York City on 17 November 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters Thousands of immigrant children risk losing lawyers after Trump aid cuts More than 20,000 unaccompanied children risk going to US immigration court alone after federal funding cuts Thousands of immigrant children who came to the United States without being accompanied by a parent or guardian are now at imminent risk of losing the attorneys assisting on their legal cases, amid cuts in government funding, advocates warned this week. The Trump administration has severed ties with nearly a hundred legal organizations across the country that provide immigration advice and has been funneling kids into fast-tracked court hearings. “The Trump administration is working to strip unaccompanied children of legal representation so they can be deported faster and with less scrutiny. We cannot allow that to happen,” said Ana Devereaux, senior managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. Federal officials are set to end a contract providing legal counsel to more than 20,000 children on 31 July. They have already refused to reimburse organizations for $65m in work completed since December, attorneys say, unless those organizations agree to violate their young clients’ confidentiality and turn over sensitive information, such as un-redacted medical evaluations and data about kids’ broader immigration cases, according to Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, the contractor that administers legal services for those kids. “These sorts of detailed disclosures could provide the government with, really, a roadmap for mass deportation of children,” said Aber said. The federal administration’s ultimatum is pressing many of the affected non-profits toward layoffs, hiring freezes or even financial collapse and all but ensuring that young immigrants will have to face court alone. “Without a lawyer, children win the right to stay in the United States less than 10% of the time. Immigration judges are nearly 100 times less likely to grant relief to a child without counsel,” said Elizabeth Young, a former regional deputy chief immigration judge, who resigned last year. She added: “Due process is the foundation of American justice … When children are forced to navigate one of the most complex areas of law alone, that promise of fairness becomes little more than an illusion.” Unaccompanied children often reach the US while fleeing human trafficking, persecution, neglect, abuse or abandonment, a reality that the nation’s lawmakers have recognized through policies meant to protect some of the