Administration Continues to Dismantle Due Process Protections and Legal Access for People Facing Arbitrary Immigration Detention and Immigration Court while Escalating Efforts to Detain and Deport Visa Holders and Permanent Residents
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 16, 2025
CONTACT: press@acaciajustice.org
WASHINGTON – On April 11, 2025, the Department of Justice announced that it would discontinue the Legal Access Services for Reunified Families Program for family members who endured the first Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” family separation policies, effective on April 30. Without alternative services in place, this decision will end legal services for hundreds of parents and children who were subjected to intentional family separation and directly violates the Ms. L Settlement Agreement, which requires the government to provide basic legal access and information to families separated under those policies.
Shaina Aber, Executive Director of the Acacia Center for Justice issued the following statement in response:
“In 2018 and 2019 the Trump administration ripped families apart, separated children from their parents, leaving lasting scars on traumatized kids, and cruelly inflicted intentional harm on families who arrived in the U.S. seeking safety. Many families remain separated years later due to the administration’s failure to track the people they separated under this malicious policy. Those who have been reunited struggle to move forward and rebuild their lives after experiencing the violence of separation.
“While the US took steps toward restitution for parents and children who were subjected to this cruelty, the administration seems intent on violating its agreement to provide basic legal assistance to parents and children as required by the settlement. Intentional separation of children from their parents will forever remain a stain on our nation’s history, and now the Trump administration is doubling down on this cruelty by depriving families still coping with the aftermath of that separation of access to basic legal information and assistance with immigration court filings. The administration has given no indication that it will provide replacement services for these family members as mandated by the binding court order in the Ms. L class settlement.
“We are at a tipping point for our democracy – this erosion of respect for the rule of law and the role of the judicial branch in checking an executive branch set on bulldozing our founding documents and the Bill of Rights will not stop with immigrant communities. We urge our elected officials to lead with courage and forcefully defend our nation’s most treasured founding values of fairness, freedom, and justice, and we urge the American people to demand this of the leaders they elected.”
On April 10, 2025, the Trump administration terminated several legal access and representation programs administered by Acacia through a nationwide network of legal service providers, effective April 16, 2025. The Legal Orientation Program, Legal Orientation Program for Custodians of unaccompanied children, Immigration Court Helpdesk, and Family Group Legal Orientation Program help families, children, and individuals better understand their rights and obligations before immigration court. The Counsel for Children Initiative provides legal representation to children in immigration court proceedings who would otherwise have to face a trained government prosecutor and the prospect of deportation by themselves.
“Particularly at a time when the administration has sought billions of taxpayer dollars for the infrastructure to arbitrarily and indiscriminately detain and deport people without affording them even basic due process, access to legal services in detention facilities and at the courts is more critical than ever,” continued Aber. “The termination of these longstanding programs will leave hundreds of thousands of vulnerable immigrants – and people the government erroneously assumes are immigrants – without access to basic legal information and representation, left to languish in a system increasingly designed to hurt them.”
LASRF services are provided by nine regional legal service providers and a national pro bono service provider. The programs provide services to class members and their qualified additional family members throughout the U.S. and three U.S. territories.
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