Prosecutors say fast-track deportations risk endangering trafficking victims
A federal contract that funds legal services for tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant minors expires Friday, with the U.S. government owing roughly $65 million to the contractor, according to the contractor and a group of current and former prosecutors. The contractor, Acacia Center for Justice, said the Trump administration stopped paying the contract in December and does not appear to have plans to replace it.
Ten current and former prosecutors sent a letter Wednesday to the Department of Homeland Security objecting to the administration’s approach. The letter said the administration has directed immigration judges to fast-track deportation cases for minors and blocked their access to lawyers who could help them apply for relief from removal, including by acting as witnesses in human trafficking or domestic violence cases.
“By arresting and deporting survivors who have come forward and applied for protection, the Administration not only risks endangering the survivor and their family members, but the Government also sends a chilling message to the larger community: don’t call the police, don’t report crime — you or your loved ones will get deported,” the letter reads. “This undermines public safety for us all.”
A series of federal laws has for decades shielded child immigrants from removal, either to protect their safety or to allow them to testify against abusers or human traffickers. The prosecutors said the administration has undermined those protections.
Neither DHS nor the Department of Health and Human Services, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with caring for unaccompanied minors, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Maggy Krell, a California assembly member and former prosecutor who worked on human-trafficking cases over her two-decade career, signed the letter. “These crimes are vastly underreported, and now the government is setting up an additional barrier to threaten people with deportation if they have the courage to come forward,” Krell said. “It not only jeopardizes that person, it jeopardizes the entire prosecution.”
“Many of these kids are trafficking victims and they deserve protections in federal law, at a minimum,” she said.
The Trump administration has been at odds with Acacia since last year, when HHS attempted to cancel the legal services contract, only for a federal judge to order it reinstated. Later, the administration began pressing legal services providers to give up confidential information about clients. The providers refused, contending that doing so could violate attorney-client privilege.
Multiple lawsuits in federal court seek to force ORR to pay for legal services already provided to unaccompanied minors. A hearing on the issue is slated for August 6, according to Notus.
As the standoff continues, legal providers have had to lay off or furlough lawyers who represented unaccompanied minors through the congressionally mandated program. Kids in Need of Defense, a legal nonprofit that subcontracts with Acacia, announced last month that it will no longer work through the program after accumulating $20 million in unpaid fees.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has pushed more aggressively to deport unaccompanied minors. Immigration judges have issued roughly 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders monthly against unaccompanied minors since Trump returned to the White House, according to ProPublica — about four times the rate from his previous term.
“These laws were enacted to protect survivors. What ICE is doing right now is completely upending that,” Krell said. “We’re talking about really traumatized kids here and other crime victims who are asking for help — and we’re locking them up and deporting them.”