Congress considers ending legal help for migrant children after judge orders restart
Just before a judge ordered it, the Trump administration agreed to resume paying for attorneys for migrant children who come to the United States alone.
Just before a judge ordered it to do so, the Trump administration agreed to resume paying for attorneys for migrant children who come to the United States alone.
But groups that have been struggling to keep such unaccompanied children from being deported said the legal help is still in jeopardy under a Republican proposal put forward in a House committee Wednesday.
“I have been doing this work for a very long time, and what I read in this bill took by breath away,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense. “This bill not only makes it impossible for children to access protection in the United States, but it would make the government responsible for putting children in even more compromised and dangerous conditions.”
The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the House Judiciary Committee, which considered the measure, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin, in California’s Northern District, issued a preliminary injunction late Tuesday ordering the administration to resume the money for the legal assistance, which it had stopped in March.
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