A federal judge in Northern California ordered the restoration of legal funds for migrant children who enter the United States alone, temporarily reversing a Trump administration decision last month that had left children at risk of deportation.
Nonprofit groups had been fighting the decision since they received notice from the federal government on March 21 that it would terminate funding for legal services for unaccompanied children in immigration court.
The halt in funding, according to a complaint filed by the groups, had put some 26,000 children at risk of being cut off from their lawyers and disadvantaged them in adversarial immigration proceedings. The government had argued that the funding was discretionary and that it was not obligated to provide legal representation for the children.
But Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco disagreed, saying on Tuesday that by terminating the funding, the government had potentially violated its obligations to protect children from human trafficking.
Under a law combating human trafficking, which the nonprofit groups argued the government had violated, the government must, to the “greatest extent practicable,” provide legal representation to minors.
Children represented by the nonprofits, according to the groups’ complaint, arrived in the United States to flee violence, poverty and other dangers. Many of them are from Central America. Most do not speak English or have the means to hire a lawyer.
Nearly two-thirds of unaccompanied children had representation when they appeared in U.S. courts during the 2024 fiscal year, according to official data. Children who have lawyers attend their hearings 95% of the time, while those without representation attend only 33% of the time. Thousands of children in recent years who have missed their court dates have been ordered to be deported.
Since the federal funding was cut off, the groups said that they had been forced to consider cutting staff to stay financially viable or to stop providing legal services to existing and future clients. The groups, the judge said Tuesday, would likely suffer “irreparable harm” without the funding.
Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the care of migrant children, said in an email Wednesday that the department did not comment on ongoing litigation.
The order, which came into effect Wednesday, will expire April 16, with both parties able to file more briefs before a final decision by the court.