Trump leaves unaccompanied migrant children alone before courts ordering deportations

WashingtonChildren as young as two years old will have to face immigration judges alone who are processing their deportation due to the Donald Trump administration's directive to cut off legal assistance to unaccompanied migrant minors. Among the 26,000 children and adolescents who will be affected by this order are children who have been "victims of trafficking," according to organizations that provide legal assistance to this group. All of them are at greater risk of being deported if they are left without a lawyer.

Beyond interrupting funding for the Unaccompanied Children Program – which is assigned by Congress – the Trump administration also ordered government-funded lawyers on Tuesday night to "stop their work immediately." Both the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project of Arizona and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), the main provider of legal services for unaccompanied minors, have confirmed that they have received the document.

"Yesterday all of our organizations received an order from the Trump administration telling us to abandon these children," Linda Tozelski, executive director of ImmDef, explained at a press conference organized this Wednesday by the main organizations affected by the directive. ImmDef currently legally represents more than 2,000 children under the Unaccompanied Children Program, the youngest of whom is only five months old. Tozelski has warned that some of the children affected by the measure are "child survivors of human trafficking, some of whom were raped on the way to the United States." "And now the Trump administration is telling us to stop fighting for them," she lamented.

Tozelski has denounced that if legal assistance is withdrawn, these children will find themselves alone before the questions of the immigration judge and will face "a government lawyer whose only job is to argue in favor of their deportation." "As you can imagine, without an attorney on their side these children have no chance of defending themselves," she said, and already announced that ImmDef will take the case to court.

"What is our client, a two-year-old girl, supposed to do without her attorney? Who will speak for her in court? Who will explain to her and all of our other clients in the foster care system who have no adult in the United States to care for them that they will now have to face an immigration system alone?" immigration that represents about 60 minors in Pasadena, California. The lawyer also works with "victims of human trafficking," who are now "in a situation of extreme vulnerability" facing the risk of being deported. "We are not going to abandon our clients, but this stop-work order puts us in a position where we will have to restructure and respond," said the lawyer.

Trafficking victims

In the United States, people who enter the immigration court system and face deportation do not have the same right to an attorney as people in criminal proceedings, although they can hire private attorneys. Over time, it has been recognized that children who go through the immigration court system without a parent or guardian are especially vulnerable, so in 2008 the Trafficking Victims Protection Act created special protections for minors in this type of situation. The law states that the government must provide legal representation for children in deportation proceedings, although it does not require all children to have an attorney.

"While not all children who go through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) system receive full and direct representation, each child is offered the protection of being able to meet with a legal services provider and receive absolutely vital information, sometimes considering which side they are on, so they can remain safe in the United States," Tozelski explained.

While the organizations insist they will not abandon their clients for ethical reasons, they also acknowledge that the suspension order leaves them in a position of economic vulnerability and that some may be forced to withdraw their cases and lay off their employees. "This is the most significant attack on migrant children since family separation," said Michael Luken of the Amica Center, referring to when Trump implemented the Zero Tolerance program in his first term, which separated parents and minor children at the border.

The order to end legal representation for unaccompanied migrant children marks a new advance in Trump's aggressive campaign against migrants. In his first month in office, the president must Authorized raids on schools and churches, has launched a fear campaign against undocumented people and has startedt the first deportations in Guantanamo without providing evidence as to whether deported migrants are actually dangerous criminals, as the White House claims.