CHICAGO (AP) — The Trump administration has awarded a $150 million contract to give legal representation to migrant children traveling alone to the U.S. to a small Texas law firm with ties to the administration but little experience in immigration law, prompting legal aid groups who’ve long represented those children to warn that the move could make them vulnerable to deportation.The contract to the Houston-based Burke Law Group comes as the Trump administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign across the country and after the administration last week let a key contract with a network of legal groups working with immigrant children around the country expire with no replacement. The providers have increasingly raised worries that children won’t have the experienced legal help they need at a time when the administration is intensifying efforts to remove people from the country.
Michael Lukens, who heads the Amica Center, called the idea that the administration had given the sole-source contract to the Texas firm “upsetting and shocking.”“It really does forebode a situation where children are going to get no meaningful due process, no meaningful day in court. We cannot have a random law firm entrusted to take care of children,” Lukens said. The groups said the contract announced Tuesday only applies to the children currently held in government-run shelters and that the government would need to issue another contract covering services for migrant children outside the shelter system. Lukens said that there are currently about 1,800 children living in shelters, and roughly 22,000 living outside with sponsors, such as family members. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the government agency responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children, did not respond to requests for comment.
