DENVER— The Trump administration is cutting funding to a program that provides legal help to thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children, including many in Colorado.
Immigrant advocates in Denver called the administration’s decision heartbreaking and cruel.
“This decision is heartbreaking and unjust," said Raquel Lane-Arellano with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. "Denying children access to a lawyer in immigration court is a deliberate act of cruelty. This is part of a larger agenda to dehumanize immigrants and dismantle basic protections. No child should be forced to face a judge alone, especially in a system as complex and high-stakes as immigration.”
"We were absolutely outraged and pretty shocked to find this out,” said Ashley Harrington, an attorney with Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network.
Harrington said the Trump administration is putting immigrant children at significant risk.
"This puts these children in grave danger. It puts them at extreme risk of being subjected to abuse and trafficking,” said Harrington.
According to a federal memo obtained by ABC News, the administration is terminating a contract that provides legal aid to 26,000 children who entered the U.S. alone. Harrington said many children will be without a lawyer by their side at immigration hearings.
“It's impossible for a child to do on their own, and it's absolutely cruel that that's what the government is asking them to do,” said Harrington.
Federal data shows only 56% of unaccompanied children had attorneys in 2023. Harrington said children without an attorney are far more likely to be deported and sent back to potentially dangerous circumstances.
“A lot of these kids have already suffered extreme trauma, trafficking, abuse, and crime, but taking away their lawyers puts them at extreme risk of being even more vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, abuse, and certainly makes them much more vulnerable to deportation, back to harm and abuse that they fled in the first place,” said Harrington.
Over 6,000 unaccompanied children have been sent to Colorado in the past four years, according to federal data. Most live with relatives as they await immigration proceedings.
Denver7 asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the program that provides the legal aid funding, why it was terminating the funding. HHS Deputy Press Secretary Emily G. Hilliard responded, “HHS continues to meet the legal requirements established by TVPRA and Flores." No further information was provided.
TVPRA refers to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which Congress passed in 2008. It directs HHS to ensure “to the greatest extent practicable” that all unaccompanied immigrant children have legal counsel “to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.”
Flores refers to a settlement agreement concerning the detainment and release of immigrant children in federal custody.
The Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network receives federal funding to provide help to 170 immigrant children. It vows to continue that work, despite the funding going away.
"We are committed to not abandoning our clients,” said Harrington. "And we will do so as long as we possibly can, pulling from our reserves, our savings doing absolutely everything that we can to continue representation."
Harrington said people who are upset with the decision to end the legal aid funding should contact their members of Congress in the hopes it will get the administration to reverse course like it did a few weeks ago when it issued a similar memo.
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