Summer Camp for Children of Migrants Provides a Safe Space and Respite
The Summer Overnight Leadership Camp provides a safe and comforting space for the children of farmworkers and immigrant families.
- The Trump Administration last month ended a $200 million contract to provide legal representation for unaccompanied minors in U.S. immigration courts.
- A federal judge temporarily restored the funding after legal aid groups sued.
- The groups say thousands of children will be left without legal representation, adding to a court backlog.
The Trump administration’s move to cancel a $200 million contract providing legal services to unaccompanied migrant children has left some young immigrants in New Jersey in a precarious position, advocates warn.
The program was created under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. It provides free legal representation to underage migrants who arrive in the U.S. without a parent or legal guardian to help them navigate complex immigration, asylum and refugee systems.
But the administration in March ended a contract to administer the funding with the Acacia Center for Justice. The group, based in Washington, D.C., works with more than 100 legal service providers who represent over 26,000 children before U.S. immigration judges.
Among the providers that depend on the funding are groups that have clients in New Jersey, including Kids in Need of Defense, a Washington, D.C., organization with an office in Newark, and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, also in Washington.
“A lot of the children that we work with have survived severe trauma, persecution and abuse. It takes a lot of time to build up trust with a child so that you can help them,” said Michael Lukens, the Amica Center’s executive director. “Revoking their attorney is going to be a further trauma.”
Legal providers have fought back to preserve the funding. Last week, a federal district court in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order to restore the contract. A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 16.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled in favor of the legal aid groups in their lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Refugee Resettlement. Without immediate relief, the groups “are likely to suffer irreparable harm,” including layoffs, she ruled. Martínez-Olguín also found the termination of legal representation would likely violate the 2008 anti-trafficking law.
HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not respond to an email requesting comment. But in a statement released a day after the contract was canceled, the White House alleged that in the U.S. immigration system, “rampant fraud and meritless claims have supplanted the constitutional and lawful bases upon which the president exercises core powers.”
The system is “replete with examples of unscrupulous behavior by attorneys and law firms,” the administration said.
How many unaccompanied migrant children are in US?
Most of the children who have crossed the southern border in recent years have come to escape growing violence and poverty in Central America’s “Northern Triangle” countries − El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, according to the National Immigration Forum, which studies immigration policy.
More than 600,000 migrant children entered the U.S. between 2019 and 2024, according to federal data. In fiscal year 2024, approximately two-thirds of unaccompanied alien children referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement were over 14 years old, and 61% were boys.
The office places the children in one of 300 shelters in 27 states, while the government looks for sponsors, usually relatives, to provide long-term support while the minors wait for courts to decide if they can stay in the U.S.
From October to March, according to federal data, 981 unaccompanied children were released from government custody to sponsors in New Jersey.
Trump has spoken often of his goal of mass deportation of over 11 million undocumented immigrants from the U.S.. As part of that effort, Reuters reported in February, the administration has directed immigration agents to track down hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children.
What happens if legal aid goes away?
The Amica Center’s Lukens said the organization has a “handful of children” as clients with sponsors in New Jersey.
The organization had prepared for the administration to discontinue funding, though it was seen as a “worst-case scenario,” he said, since Trump did not go after legal representation in his first term. After the administration issued a stop-work order for funding for a few days in February, followed by the complete halt in March, Amica and other service providers were ready to litigate.
The Trump administration “made clear that they would attack,” Lukens said. “We immediately put plans in action.”
Without the federal funding, a “waterfall” of repercussions will follow, he said, with some law firms likely to shut down, unaccompanied children left without lawyers and immigration courts facing a logjam.
“It’s going to be a lot harder to handle a case as a judge where there is not an attorney next to the kid, because there is due process still,” Lukens said. “It’s going to slow down an already broken immigration court system where there’s close to 3 million cases in the courts backlogged, and it’s going to add to that. And every kid will not get an attorney.”
Lukens pointed to one client in New Jersey whom he represented for five years, a young man from India who sought asylum due to religious and political persecution from his government back home. Without funding, Lukens said, he would not have been able to devote years to the case, which ended with his client obtaining asylum and a green card.
“We stay with them for years. This isn’t like, ‘Hey, we met. We’re going to court. See you later,’” Lukens said.
Ripple effects in the Garden State
The loss of funding could have ripple effects for other organizations, such as the New Jersey Consortium for Immigrant Children, a legal services and advocacy group that works with young immigrants.
The Consortium, headquartered in Jersey City, helps run a state-funded legal representation program for unaccompanied minors formed in 2021 with a $3 million budget. It warned in March about the potential impact of the Trump administration’s decision.
“The decision to terminate this contract will have devastating impacts on tens of thousands of unaccompanied children,” Executive Director Priscilla Monico Marín said in a statement. “As a statewide legal service provider, we already have a severe backlog of vulnerable children waiting for representation, and without the federal funding that supported New Jersey organizations to provide these vital services, it will be impossible for New Jersey to fully meet our children’s needs.”
Fred Wied, the Consortium’s policy director, said the federal cuts could leave state legal aid providers to pick up the slack. But the state program is also facing a potential budget cut, with Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposed budget setting aside only $3 million, half of what was received last year.
“It’s a real fear that the wait list will expand, and there will be too many children not getting the defense they will need,” Wied said.
Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter/X: @ricardokaul
发表回复