24,000 migrant children could lose legal representation as contract is set to expire
More than 24,000 immigrant children who came to the U.S. without a parent or guardian and face deportation may lose access to legal representation this week when a federal contract that funds nonprofit legal services expires, and some organizations may scale back or eliminate assistance.
The cuts were compounded by the Trump administration’s refusal to reimburse nonprofits for nearly $65 million in legal services they provided to unaccompanied immigrant children; these payments, the organizations claim, are entitled to under federal law.
Legal providers said the contract’s expiration on Friday would affect about 90 organizations across the country, including in California.
Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director and co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which serves 13 facilities in greater Los Angeles, said at a news conference Wednesday that more than 1,500 unaccompanied minors her organization represents would be affected.
Other organizations in the Los Angeles area that will be affected include Public Law, the Central America Resource Center and the Women and Children Immigration Center, Toczylowski said.
“I think about the clients I have personally represented over the years — victims of human trafficking, refugees, children separated from their parents — and I wonder what chance children like them would have if there was no one to fight for them,” he said. “Lawyers are often the only independent witnesses in the immigration system. … [They] “There were those who exposed abuses, documented unlawful conditions, exposed government failures, and ensured that children’s rights were not violated.”
Toczylowski said it was attorneys who filed legal petitions to have the two teenage girls, ages 6 and 15, reunited with their families after nearly seven months in federal custody.
Elsewhere in the country, some organizations say they have been forced to end legal services for unaccompanied minors.
That’s the case for Melissa Lopez of Estrella El Paso, a nonprofit organization that provides such services in El Paso, Texas, the region and New Mexico. Lopez said his organization cannot afford the legal program for unaccompanied minors in West Texas.
“We are owed a significant amount of money (about a million dollars) for our program,” Lopez said. “We cannot continue this program without this contract.”
He said Friday afternoon that he would have to lay off staff working on the program they spent 20 years developing.
Lopez said the loss would be significant for the region, which he described as a “legal desert.”
“We are in an area where there are not enough lawyers for the community, regardless of the type of case,” he said.
El Paso is also home to one of the largest detention centers in the United States, he said.
Meena Shah, managing director of legal services for Door, a New York nonprofit, says the federal government owes her organization nearly $2 million for legal services it provided to unaccompanied minors. She worries about losing access to clients and her other children, who will now have to face a complex immigration system alone.
“It is unreasonable to think that a child can represent himself,” he said, “and I think any reasonable adult would agree.”
The problems began in March 2025, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services terminated its federal contract with the Washington-based Acacia Justice Center. The nonprofit subcontracts with nearly 100 legal service providers nationwide who represent tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors. The contract was due to be renewed in the same month.
This led the center and a coalition of nonprofit legal providers to file a federal class-action lawsuit against the agency and the Trump administration for allegedly violating the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a federal law enacted by Congress in 2008.
The law ensures that unaccompanied children have legal counsel to represent them in legal proceedings and protect them against mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.
Since the law was enacted, Congress has provided funding for the national program. In 2024, it allocated nearly $5 billion to fund the program through September 2027.
In June 2025, a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to reinstate Acacia Justice Center’s contract and continue funding the program. The contract has since been extended but will expire on Friday.
The problems worsened in November when the Trump administration stopped paying its bills because Acacia Center and its subcontractors demanded that legal services providers provide information about clients that it said violated attorney-client privilege.
Coalition nonprofits say a federal court hearing is scheduled for Aug. 6 to address the issues.
Legal service providers said the heart of the issue is upholding due process, protecting children from exploitation and ensuring the federal government complies with its own laws.
Michael Lukens, executive director of Amica Immigrant Rights Center, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the Trump administration’s refusal to compensate nonprofits is an effort to prevent them from doing so.
“They are clearly trying to destroy the program by worsening the financial health of nonprofits,” he said. “We’ve seen layoffs and furloughs, and if these bills don’t get paid, we’re going to see a lot more of them.”
Last month, Kids in Need of Defense said in a written statement that it was canceling its subcontract with the Acacia Justice Center after collecting more than $20 million in unpaid legal aid to help immigrant children.
But in June, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José), a former immigration law professor, reintroduced the Fair Day in Court for Children Act, a bill that would give unaccompanied minors legal representation during immigration court proceedings.
“It is absolutely heartbreaking and ridiculous to see 4-year-olds arriving at immigration court unable to speak English to face these complex proceedings alone,” he said in a statement at the time.
A number of current and former federal, state and local prosecutors sent a signed letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expressing law enforcement and humanitarian concerns about ending the program without a specific plan.
Toczylowski said ending a program that serves one of the most vulnerable immigrant populations should be viewed as an attack on children and Americans should be alarmed.
“When you take lawyers away from children, you not only take away legal representation, you take away one of the few meaningful checks on government misconduct,” he said. “We have always said that being present with a child in the courtroom is one of the only things that gives them a fighting chance to achieve justice in our broken immigration system.”
