The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project is proud to join 10 other nonprofit organizations that provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for terminating funding for legal representation for children. This termination is an unprecedented attack on the rights and safety of immigrant children.
Through the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP), the Florence Project and partner organizations provide age-appropriate legal education and services to children who are in the United States without a parent or a legal guardian, as well as providing full legal representation and friend of court services.
These are children who are in the United States alone, who have fled dangerous conditions in their home countries, including violence, trafficking, neglect, and abuse, and who likely don’t speak English.
The children that will be impacted by this termination range from babies to teenagers. We recently learned about two babies, both under two years old, who are currently in government custody in Arizona and are not in the process of being reunified with their parents. These children are unable to advocate for themselves at all. Because of the UCP termination, these children face appearing in court alone.
It is impossible for a child to have a fair day in court without an attorney by their side.
The lawsuit aims to restore these life-saving legal services so that all children receive the legal representation, advocacy and support to which they are entitled.
The lawsuit was filed by the Justice Action Center, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, and Immigrant Defenders Law Center on behalf of 11 organizations that provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children.
Other organizational plaintiffs include Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Estrella del Paso, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA), Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Social Justice Collaborative, and Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.