The Trump administration on Wednesday ordered legal service providers working with unaccompanied migrant children to stop their work.
The move is the latest in a string of actions stripping key resources from immigrants in the United States, including children who now face deportation.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a group that for decades has been the largest provider of legal services for unaccompanied children who cross the U.S. border from Mexico, is among the groups that received a stop-work order from the Trump administration.
The organization says that the United States Department of the Interior has ordered them to curtail all activities relating to their legal defense programs for unaccompanied children .
“The safety and welfare of children in government custody should be the primary concern of our elected leaders. [Wednesday’s] decision by the Trump administration to eliminate access to counsel for 26,000 children is an affront to American values,” ImmDef President and chief executive officer Lindsay Toczylowski said in a statement.
She added that the Trump administration is abandoning children for the sake of politics, and vowed that ImmDef will continue to fight for their right to legal representation and to protect the rights of vulnerable children.
“We urge the government to restore services immediately to protect children’s rights,” Toczylowski said. “Our government will be judged by how it treats children in its care.
“By all standards, this administration is failing them and self-inflicting a black eye as the rest of the world watches.”
Anyone who wishes to support the organization can donate here, or write to elected officials to ask them for legal services for immigrant children to be restored.
ImmDef is the largest legal service provider to unaccompanied children in Southern California. It provides comprehensive legal services, including legal representation, for thousands of children annually.
