Migrant children in US lack lawyers, advocates say

Advocates say unaccompanied migrant children in the United States are being left to face immigration proceedings without experienced legal support after the Trump administration ended a long-running funding arrangement.

Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of a legal support group, said she watched a 17-year-old detained mother and her one-year-old child appear in Louisiana immigration court in August, where the judge told them to apply for asylum. She said the teenager was expected to handle her own case and filings for her child while in detention.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement traditionally cares for unaccompanied minors, including children who arrive without an adult or whose parents are detained. A 2008 law mandated legal services for them, and a federal judge blocked an earlier administration attempt to cut off support.

The government later stopped making payments and in July 2026 let its contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which managed a network of about 100 organisations, expire. Avila-Cimpeanu said funding had been made contingent on releasing confidential information about about 20,000 children, which the network refused to do.

Democratic lawmakers this week questioned plans to shift work to other groups and said vulnerable children should not be entrusted to firms they called unqualified.

ORR said it funded the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants through the end of the year to appear at hearings, and said USCRI is appearing at all hearings and has expanded legal orientation, consultations and direct representation.

Acacia spokesman Bilal Askaryar said USCRI has about 50 attorneys, compared with about 800 in Acacia’s network, and said the issue concerns about 20,000 children seeking safety in the United States.