About 160 immigrant children in Colorado who are separated from their parents could lose their attorneys under a stop work order issued Tuesday by the Trump administration.
The order ends funding for legal services in the Office of Refugee Resettlement unaccompanied children’s program. The order, which a Colorado nonprofit said “gravely imperils the ongoing representation of children in immigration proceedings,” comes after a stop work order issued by the U.S. Department of Justice in January that halted legal services for adult immigrants.
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, which counsels immigrants who are seeking asylum or other legal ways to remain in the country, said it was “appalled and outraged” at the latest action. The network “represents hundreds of unaccompanied children — some as young as 2 years old — who would otherwise be forced to navigate the complicated immigration legal system alone,” Ashley Harrington, managing attorney of the network’s children’s program, said Wednesday in a news release.
Some of the children have been victims of abuse, neglect or trafficking and fled to the United States for safety, Harrington said.
Among the children represented by RMIAN is a teenager who was beaten by her father nearly every day and ran away to the United States. The organization was helping her get a green card and become a U.S. citizen.
Another of the organization’s cases involves three siblings, ages 7-13, whose parents were killed by gang members in their home county. They stayed with an abusive uncle until running away to the United States, RMIAN said.
The order from the Department of the Interior was sent to the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit that funds RMIAN and about 90 other legal service providers across the country. The providers represent more than 26,000 children in immigration court proceedings. The children are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or have been released from custody but are still involved in immigration cases.
In January, the administration issued a similar stop work order to multiple immigrant advocacy organizations that receive federal funding, including Acacia. The action followed an executive order from President Donald Trump titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” and announcing the “faithful execution of the immigration laws.”
The stop work order immediately suspended RMIAN’s operations inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora and the immigration courthouse in downtown Denver.
More than 85% of immigrants in Colorado fighting deportation and trying to prove their case for asylum or other legal ways to stay in the United States have no attorney. Many of them visit the advocacy network’s help desks and “Know Your Rights” presentations in the courthouse and detention center before they go into court to face an immigration judge.
Legal service providers sued the Trump administration over the order. They were allowed to resume work after the administration rescinded the order, at least temporarily.