The Trump administration has cut ties with nearly 100 legal organizations across the United States that give immigration advice to children who arrive at the border without a parent or guardian. Advocates disclosed the cuts this week; the administration made no formal announcement. A contract that provides lawyers to more than 20,000 of these children is set to end on July 31, 2026. The contract is run by the Acacia Center for Justice, whose executive director, Shaina Aber, oversees the network of non-profits now facing layoffs, hiring freezes, or financial collapse.

The cuts come amid a fight over money. Federal officials have refused to pay these legal organizations for $65 million in work they completed since December 2025. The condition? The organizations must hand over unredacted — meaning uncensored, with nothing blacked out — medical evaluations and data about the children's immigration cases. Legal-service providers are concerned that this demand puts sensitive client information at risk and uses the power of the government's purse to pressure organizations into giving up case files.

The consequences for children could be serious. According to former immigration judge Elizabeth Young, children who go through immigration court without a lawyer win the right to stay in the United States less than 10% of the time. Without these lawyers, thousands of children face removal proceedings — the legal process where the government tries to deport someone — on their own. Ana Devereaux, a senior attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, is among those whose organization may shut down under the cuts.

This is not the first clash over the issue. In February 2025, the administration ordered a halt to legal services for unaccompanied children, then reversed that order. A federal court later told the administration to resume funding for children's lawyers in April 2025. Advocates filed another lawsuit on February 11, 2026 to stop the administration from ending protections for these children, building on earlier cases brought by the National Immigrant Justice Center.

The program's finances have also drawn scrutiny. The 2026 federal budget for the Department of Health and Human Services includes $4.2 billion for the Unaccompanied Alien Children program. In February 2026, the HHS Office of Inspector General — an internal watchdog — reported that a $529 million contract for children's services was awarded without competition, cost double the original estimate, and broke pre-award rules. On June 11, 2026, the department's press office listed an item titled 'Trump officials broaden investigation into unaccompanied migrant children.'

International observers are watching too. U.N. human rights experts condemned the cuts on January 27, 2026. Public Counsel issued a statement opposing the elimination of federal funding, and KIND, another organization, said the decision ended key legal services for 26,000 unaccompanied children in the United States.

The bigger picture is about how the system works — or stops working. The immigration court system relies heavily on federally funded lawyers to help children through their cases, including applications for special protections designed for minors. Think of it like a public defender's office, but for immigration court instead of criminal court. The Acacia contract is the main source of that help. Removing it leaves a gap that a small $1.8 million grant program from 2014 was never built to fill.

What happens next depends on whether courts allow the July 31 termination to go through, and whether the fight over medical records turns into a larger dispute over attorney-client privilege — the legal principle that communications between a lawyer and client should stay private. The organizations at risk are running out of time and money. For the more than 20,000 children in the system, losing their lawyer turns an already difficult process into one where their chances of being allowed to stay drop toward single digits.