Just before a judge ordered him to do so, the Trump administration agreed to resume the payment of lawyers for migrant children who come only to the United States.
But the groups that have been struggling to prevent those unaccompanied children from being deported said that legal aid is still in danger under a republican proposal presented in a camera committee on Wednesday.
“I have been doing this work for a long time, and what I read in this bill took away the breath,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president of policies and defense of children who need defense. “This bill is not only impossible for children to access protection in the United States, but also make the government responsible for putting children in more compromised and dangerous conditions.”
The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Judicial Committee of the Chamber, which considered the measure, did not immediately respond to the requests for comments.
The American district judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin, in the northern district of California, issued a preliminary court order on Tuesday night ordering the administration to resume money for legal assistance, which he had stopped in March.
Several groups that provided legal aid demanded after they were forced to abruptly say goodbye to workers and fight to find other help for not accompanied migrant children with pending cases, including some victims of trafficking, and, in some cases, withdraw from cases.
Martínez-Olguin had ordered the administration to resume the payment of lawyers in the case. But the claimants filed additional complaints before the court saying that the Administration refused to comply with that temporary restriction order. During that time, the Administration appealed and also tried to be challenged.
On Monday, on the eve of the deadline for Martínez-Olguin’s decision on the preliminary judicial order, the Administration signed a modified contract with the Acacia Justice Center, said Adina Appelbaum, director of the Amica Center program for the Immigrant Rights Immigration Immigration Laboratory, representing some of the plaintiffs.
Acacia had subcontracted more than 100 groups throughout the country to provide legal aid to some 26,000 unaccompanied children. The new contract is for a shorter period, said Appelbaum.
But how long the financing will last could depend on what Congress does in the budget legislation that is currently being written. The measure considered by the Chamber Committee would omit money for lawyers for unaccompanied children, which Congress has paid since 2009, according to immigration and anti-transfrafic groups that reviewed the legislation, groups said lawyers.
The measure also proposed a series of rates that would charge children not and their parents or guardians who could end in the United States. They included $ 5,000 to reach the border between the legal entrance ports, as well as sponsorship rates of up to $ 8,500.
‘A great gift for traffickers’
The members of organizations that help unaccompanied children said the proposal, if it became law, “dismantled” the protections for unaccompanied children, with “catastrophic” implications for children seeking security in the United States, including many who are trafficking victims inside and outside the country.
Jean Bruggeman, executive director of the Freedom Network, the largest coalition in the country of defenders and experts against trafficking, said that the United States has achieved “impressive” progress against trafficking in persons in the last 25 years.
The measure considered by the committee, said Bruggeman, would be “a great gift for traffickers and an increase in vulnerability for children and families in the United States that will lead to more abuse and exploitation.”
