Today the Trump administration issued notice to legal service providers nationwide, including the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), to stop work on the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s unaccompanied child legal services program. The order indicates this “is being implemented due to causes outside your control and should not be misconstrued as an indication of poor performance by your firm.” Stopping this funding will affect thousands of vulnerable children and families across the nation, including more than 800 in Michigan served by MIRC. Nationally, 26,000 children are now at risk of losing their legal representation and all children in federal custody will be without legal information.

MIRC condemns this cruel action from the Trump administration, designed to inflict further suffering on vulnerable children and families. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s unaccompanied child legal services program is essential to ensuring fairness and due process for unaccompanied children in their immigration court proceedings. Legal services are unaccompanied children’s only hope for a fair process in the complex, adversarial U.S. immigration system. Unaccompanied children’s unique vulnerabilities – including their age, developmental stage, and communication and comprehension constraints – make it virtually impossible for them to effectively navigate the complex and adversarial immigration system without an attorney at their side. Recent data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR, also known as the immigration courts), bear this out, revealing that immigration judges were almost 100 times less likely to grant relief to unaccompanied children without counsel than unaccompanied children with counsel. In many cases, government-funded legal services are the only thing preventing a three-year-old unaccompanied child – one who cannot comprehend what immigration court is – from facing court proceedings alone. MIRC attorneys often use child-appropriate teaching aids, like the toy courtroom pictured above, to help our young clients understand the system they are navigating. No child in these circumstances can receive a fair legal process without an attorney.

Legal services for children are also vital to combatting trafficking and exploitation of unaccompanied children. Child trafficking investigators have regularly sought out staff from MIRC to provide legal services that will assist children so that investigators can hold traffickers accountable. Legal staff specialize in building rapport with children that helps prevent them from slipping through the cracks and continuing to be vulnerable to traffickers. For instance, MIRC staff helped children who had experienced labor trafficking and child abuse to leave their traffickers and begin to heal. Policymakers across the ideological spectrum have historically been committed to safeguarding unaccompanied children from trafficking and exploitation, and the provision of legal services is one of the most important measures the federal government can take to achieve this aim. Congress recognized this when passing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008 on a sweeping bipartisan basis, directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure, to the greatest extent practicable…that all unaccompanied alien children…have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.”

Abruptly terminating statutorily-mandated services violates the TVPRA, as well as the government’s clear obligations to children that it has otherwise agreed to during litigation, including the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) and the relatively recent Ms. L v. ICE settlement designed to prevent family separation, among other critical protections. 

Unaccompanied children without legal representation simply cannot meaningfully navigate the U.S. immigration system in pursuit of legal protection, when eligible, against trafficking, labor abuses, and similar mistreatment. Relevant legal relief may include T visas for child survivors of trafficking or U visas for child victims of sexual exploitation and other crimes. Such visas not only help deliver those children security but often support law enforcement agencies’ investigation and prosecution of human traffickers and abusers. 

Lawyers are also vital to ensuring that children appear for immigration court hearings and meet other requirements under U.S. law.  Unaccompanied children often do not understand what immigration court even is, much less the necessity to appear before it. Evidence demonstrates that children with attorneys overwhelmingly satisfy immigration court hearing requirements. From FY 2005 through June FY 2019 — the most recent relevant data available — 98 percent of children with lawyers appeared for their hearings, helping ensure that these children remain within the U.S. immigration system and in contact with EOIR and ICE as appropriate.

MIRC attorneys and legal professionals have assisted hundreds of children through this critical program. MIRC was able to reunite two young Afghan twins with their family following the fall of the Afghan government. In addition to direct legal assistance, certain cases have also set precedent. For example, MIRC secured relief for a child who had been forced to work and whipped when he could not do so by his family in Guatemala. After arguing in the Michigan Court of Appeals, MIRC was able to build precedent that will help other abused children. 

Attorneys are also essential to ensuring appropriate address updates with U.S. immigration agencies when unaccompanied children change residences. These updates generally require completion of online and/or paper forms — from ICE’s “Online Change of Address Form” to EOIR’s Form-33 — that adults often have difficulty navigating. Attorneys aid unaccompanied children’s comprehension and submission of these forms in a timely and accurate fashion so that immigration agencies are properly notified of relocations.   

Attorneys for unaccompanied children are also essential to driving efficiencies that are needed more than ever in the face of the immigration court system’s nearly 4 million case backlog, preventing waste and limiting operational burdens on ICE and EOIR personnel alike. Attorneys help reduce the volume of necessary court hearings, provide explanations to children that make hearings and other legal processes more expeditious, and facilitate prompt voluntary departures as appropriate when children wish to return to their countries of origin. MIRC staff have frequently witnessed children appearing by themselves who have strong cases, but who are not able to complete important steps without the help of a lawyer. Where some children would have to return to court several times, wasting government resources, those who have a lawyer may be able to move their cases forward in a single hearing–saving time and resources and preventing unnecessary re-traumatization. 

MIRC will continue to serve the 800 young clients we currently represent in Michigan as best we can, for as long as we can, given the limited resources we have available. However, 80% of our current staffing will be affected by this stop work order.

We need your help.

Please consider making a donation or ongoing contribution so that we are able to continue representation for our current clients. Your support can help us continue providing vital services to immigrant families and communities in Michigan.

Help protect immigrant rights in Michigan by making a contribution today michiganimmigrant.org/donate

Michigan Immigrant Rights Center | michiganimmigrant.org