1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Today I take pen in hand to write and urge you to do all you can to restore and augment legal representation for the 24,000 unaccompanied immigrant children currently held in ORR custody. HHS refused to renew the contract for their legal counsel, stiffed lawyers $65 million in back pay, and replaced experienced advocates with Our Rescue — an NGO whose founder faces accusations of sex trafficking! Children as young as three are now appearing on video screens in immigration court without lawyers, facing deportation hearings before Trump-appointed judges. That is a federal law violation, not a policy disagreement. These kids are being held an average of 194 days when the law mandates a maximum of 20. Sites in Texas, Florida, and South Carolina have lost state licensing, stripping away oversight and inspections. Local police are conducting so-called wellness checks that end in arrests, with a $22,500 bounty paid per child under 287(g) agreements. The administration is simultaneously building a 3,000-bed detention facility in Texas and proposing to convert a toxic former military base in Louisiana into a second site. This is happening in the shadows precisely because it cannot survive public scrutiny. Demand HHS cancel the Our Rescue contract, reinstate the qualified legal service providers, and ensure every child in ORR custody has legal representation as required by law. Oppose any funding for new detention construction. These children have no one else fighting for them — that has to change now, or it’s on all our heads that we were silent while crimes were committed in our names by the Trump administration. Thank you.