Tens of thousands of children will be forced to represent themselves in immigration court without these services.
Phoenix, AZ – On March 21, the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project received a notice of a near total shutdown of the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP). Under UCP, the Florence Project provides Know Your Rights presentations and legal education for children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as well as other legal services including court assistance, post-release referrals, shelter advocacy, and direct representation.
“By terminating this contract, the U.S. government is violating legal protections for immigrant children and forcing them to fight their immigration cases alone,” said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, Florence Project Deputy Director. “Without the UCP funding for legal advocacy, children, no matter their age, will be forced to represent themselves in immigration court. Already, we are seeing the government move for the expedited removal of unrepresented children. These services are critical not only as a matter of fundamental fairness – children should not be asked to stand up in court alone against a trained government attorney – but also for protecting children from trafficking, abuse, and exploitation and for helping immigration courts run more efficiently. The children who will be impacted by this are among the most vulnerable – children who are alone in the United States, detained by the government, separated from their loved ones, and survivors of abandonment, abuse, and neglect. To strip away legal services for them while claiming to care about the safety of children is inhumane.”
According to the notice, the government is terminating nearly all services provided through the UCP, except initial legal orientations and initial legal intakes. These services are an important first step to educating children but are woefully inadequate in protecting children’s due process rights, ensuring they understand the legal process and their options, and providing a trusted adult to whom they can report institutional abuse.
The Florence Project is pursuing all possible avenues to continue to provide critical services to unaccompanied immigrant children and urges the government to reverse course and reinstate federally-funded legal services for children in its custody immediately.