Trump plan cuts legal help for thousands of migrant kids

• Without lawyers it's extremely difficult for such youths — about 26,000 of them now get this legal aid — to show in court why they should be allowed to stay in the U.S.
• Those who can't prove their need for asylum are likely to be deported.

Zoom in: The funding cut has alarmed children's advocates, who are accusing the Trump administration of trying to boost its deportation numbers by denying due process to asylum-seeking kids.

• "If you're trying to make a show of a mass deportation, what easier way to hit your numbers ... than to push through a bunch of kids who cannot meaningfully defend themselves?" said Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, which provides lawyers and legal support to immigrants.
• "What we're seeing is a full-scale assault on the due process rights of unaccompanied children," said Mickey Donovan, director of legal services at a group called Immigrant Defenders.

Unaccompanied minors in asylum cases often have escaped violence such as forced labor, sexual assault or death threats, Donovan told Axios.

• The youths usually arrive in the U.S. from Mexico or Central America, but in recent years have been from other parts of the world as well.

State of play: The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for unaccompanied migrant children, cut the funding on March 21. The "savings" were touted on DOGE's online tracker.

• A coalition of legal groups has gone to court to fight the loss of the funds, which were to run through September 2026.
• A San Francisco judge issued a temporary restraining order against the cut on April 2. The next court hearing in the case is on Tuesday.
• At issue is whether ending the funding — set by Congress — would violate the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008. It requires legal representation for unaccompanied migrant children.

What they're saying: "It had a good intent," border czar Tom Homan, said of the law during an interview with Axios. He wants to see it applied more narrowly to legal services for children.

• "Change the TVPRA, saying if you're not a victim of trafficking, no matter what country you're from, you can be removed," Homan said.
• An HHS spokesperson said in a statement that the agency is still complying with the law and wouldn't comment on the ongoing lawsuit.

Between the lines: The legal fund helps children such as a 7-year-old boy who crossed the border recently with a smuggler who tried to make it seem like they were family.

• Jacob Wedemeyer of Estrella del Paso, a Catholic legal services group, worked on the boy's case. He said Border Patrol agents separated the smuggler and the boy because they doubted their story.
• They discovered that the boy's mother had arranged to get monthly payments from the smuggler if he were able to enter the U.S.
• "It's hypocritical of the administration to, on the one hand, say it wants to protect children, and then on the other hand, cut all legal representation for the children," Wedemeyer said.

The day the funding was cut last month, a Sudanese teenager was scheduled to move from HHS foster care to a sponsor's care in Vermont. There he was to receive legal support from Martin Diaz's organization as a condition of his release while he awaits his asylum hearing.

• The teen is afraid of reuniting with his parents in Sudan because of alleged abuse, and says he's been attacked in Sudan for being a religious and ethnic minority, Martin Diaz said.
• Proving this in court — with documentation and a psychological evaluation — will take hundreds of hours of legal work.
• But Martin Diaz's group had to scale back its legal commitment when the government funding was cut.
• The Sudanese teen remains in foster care.