While we welcome this decision, the fight is not over, and the harm cannot be undone.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 7, 2026
CONTACT: press@acaciajustice.org
WASHINGTON —Yesterday’s ruling in the Northern District of California is a victory for more than 20,000 unaccompanied children we represent and for the legal teams who went to court to protect them even when the government held $65 million in payments hostage to unethical disclosures of our young clients’ confidential data.
It’s also a victory for the principle that the government cannot simply refuse to pay its bills in order to enact mass deportations of vulnerable kids or silence their voices.
The court has affirmed what we have said from the beginning: Congress funded these legal services, the law calls for them, and no administration gets to weaponize levers of government to attempt to override legislation and strip children of effective access to their lawyers. This ruling matters not just for the unaccompanied children our network represents today, but for every child who deserves a fair chance to tell their story before a judge with a lawyer by their side.
While we welcome yesterday’s decision, the fight is not over, and the unnecessary harm inflicted on our young clients cannot be undone. Children who have been trying to rebuild their lives after being trafficked or abandoned were kept in limbo for months. The administration is still building a rapid deportation infrastructure to target children and deprive them of due process.
The administration must comply fully with yesterday’s ruling, pay what it owes, and stop treating children’s access to counsel as a lever for mass deportation. We also call on Congress to continue its oversight of these Congressionally mandated programs, the appropriated funds, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s plans to provide for effective continuity of representation for the more than 20,000 children with active representation cases in an orderly, trauma-informed, and sensitive manner.
Take action to defend the rights of unaccompanied children here.
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