1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

Constituent Demand: Restore Legal Counsel for Unaccompanied Immigrant Children and End Child Detention Without Cause I am writing as your constituent in Pitman, NJ to express my strong opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services’ termination of its contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, effective July 31, 2026. This decision strips appointed legal counsel from an estimated 25,000-26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children currently facing immigration court proceedings. These are children, many of them toddlers and young teens, who will now be forced to represent themselves against trained government attorneys in adversarial legal proceedings that determine whether they are deported to the dangers they fled. Studies show unaccompanied children without counsel win the right to remain in the U.S. less than 1% of the time. This is not due process. It is a system designed to produce removals, not justice. I am also deeply troubled by the broader pattern this decision fits into: children being held in FOR PROFIT PRIVATE detention facilities without ever having been charged with a crime, and reports of expanding detention capacity for minors. Detaining children who have committed no offense, and then denying them legal representation to contest that detention or their immigration status, is a moral and legal failure that this country should not accept. I am asking you to: 1. Publicly oppose the termination of the HHS/Acacia Center for Justice legal services contract and call for its immediate restoration, consistent with the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act’s mandate that HHS ensure counsel for unaccompanied children to the greatest extent practicable. 2. Cosponsor or support legislation guaranteeing appointed legal counsel for unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings. 3. Oppose the detention of children who have not been charged with any crime, and support oversight and limits on the use of child detention facilities. 4. Use your oversight authority to demand answers from HHS and the administration on how these children will be protected from exploitation, abuse, and trafficking without legal representation. This is not a partisan issue. It is about whether children in this country’s custody are treated with basic fairness and protected from harm. I urge you to act, and to make your position public.