Just before a judge ordered it to do so, the Trump administration agreed to resume paying for attorneys for migrant children who come to the United States alone.
But groups that have been struggling to keep such unaccompanied children from being deported said the legal help is still in jeopardy under a Republican proposal put forward in a House committee Wednesday.
“I have been doing this work for a very long time, and what I read in this bill took by breath away,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense. “This bill not only makes it impossible for children to access protection in the United States, but it would make the government responsible for putting children in even more compromised and dangerous conditions.”
The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the House Judiciary Committee, which considered the measure, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin, in California’s Northern District, issued a preliminary injunction late Tuesday ordering the administration to resume the money for the legal assistance, which it had stopped in March.
Several groups that provided the legal help sued after they were forced to abruptly lay off workers and scramble to find other help for unaccompanied migrant children with pending cases — including some who are victims of trafficking — and, in some instances, withdraw from the cases.
Martínez-Olguin had ordered the administration to resume paying for the attorneys in the case. But the plaintiff groups filed additional complaints with the court saying the administration refused to comply with that temporary restraining order. During that time, the administration appealed and also tried to have the judge recuse herself.
Monday, on the eve of the deadline for Martínez-Olguin’s decision on the preliminary injunction, the administration signed a modified contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, said Adina Appelbaum, program director for the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights Immigration Impact Lab, which is representing some of the plaintiffs.
Acacia had subcontracted more than 100 groups around the country to provide legal help to about 26,000 unaccompanied children. The new contract is for a shorter period, Appelbaum said.
But how long the funding will last could depend on what Congress does in the budget legislation currently being written. The measure considered by the House committee would omit money for attorneys for unaccompanied children, which Congress has paid for since 2009, according to immigration and anti-trafficking groups that reviewed the legislation, attorneys with the groups said.
The measure also proposed a number of fees that would charge unaccompanied children and their parents or guardians whom they could end up with in the United States. They included $5,000 for arriving at the border between legal ports of entry, as well as sponsorship fees of up to $8,500.
‘A huge gift to traffickers’
Members of organizations that assist unaccompanied children said the proposal, if it became law, would “dismantle” protections for unaccompanied children, with “catastrophic” implications for children seeking safety in the United States, including many who are trafficking victims within and outside the country.
Jean Bruggeman, executive director of the Freedom Network, the country’s largest coalition of anti-trafficking advocates and experts, said the United States has made “impressive” progress against human trafficking over the past 25 years.
The measure considered by the committee, Bruggeman said, would be “a huge gift to traffickers and an increase in vulnerability for children and families in the United States that will lead to more abuse and exploitation.”
