FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 19, 2025
CONTACT: press@acaciajustice.org
WATCH: Experts Say Stop Work Order on Unaccompanied Kids Program is Cruel
Lawyers Denounce ‘Most Significant Attack’ on Immigrants Since Family Separation
WASHINGTON – Immigration experts denounced the Trump administration’s stop work order forcing the abrupt halt of the federally funded and congressionally appropriated Unaccompanied Children Program. This Stop Work Order means that 26,000 children could lose their attorneys, and children as young as infants will be forced to go to immigration court alone.
Watch a recording of the briefing here.
“Through the Unaccompanied Children Program, the Florence Project serves children who have arrived in the United States without a parent or legal guardian, are in government custody, and will face the full force of the U.S. government in their immigration case,” said Lillian Aponte, the Executive Director of the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. “Without these services, children, no matter their age, will be forced to represent themselves against a trained government prosecutor. Through UCP, we provide age-appropriate education to children about the legal process and their rights and obligations, as well as legal representation. These services are critical to safeguard minimal thresholds of due process. This is an unprecedented affront to the rights of immigrant children, and these critical services must continue so that we can ensure that children aren’t forced to navigate their immigration cases alone.”
“We bring teddy bears and a playhouse version of the courtroom for some of our youngest clients because it’s always overwhelming to attend a deportation hearing. To think that a child who needs a teddy bear to feel safer in court could lose her lawyer overnight is a shocking departure from the most basic ideas we have about justice and due process,” stated Susan E. Reed, Director of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC). “MIRC represented a ten-month-old baby- the youngest child taken from a parent during the family separation crisis – and successfully reunited him with his family through the unaccommodated children’s program in 2018, along with hundreds of other kids brought to our state. To see the same group of vulnerable children targeted again is the gravest injustice.”
Take action to defend the rights of immigrant kids here.
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