Legal service providers representing immigrant children filed a challenge in federal court today to stop the cruel and unlawful scheme to fast-track children’s asylum cases. The lawsuit challenges the government’s broad attempts to rush the deportation of unaccompanied children in violation of their rights and child protection laws passed by Congress.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, argues multiple federal agencies are illegally dismantling the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children seeking safety and denying them a fair chance to request protection in the United States.
The plaintiffs in the case include the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights (Amica Center), The Door, The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project (GHIRP), Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), and Jewish Family and Community Services (JFCS) Pittsburgh. The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and Trial Impact Project.
Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed bipartisan legislation designed to ensure that vulnerable immigrant children could seek refuge and safety in the U.S. Now, these same children are rushed through immigration proceedings in ways that plainly deny them their constitutional right to due process and put them in danger. The complaint argues that multiple government agencies responsible for protecting children and ensuring fair access to legal proceedings have been systematically dismantling their rights. These actions have included requiring children to file asylum applications within weeks after arriving in the U.S.; giving children extremely short notice — sometimes less than even 24 hours — of their asylum interview, thereby denying them any reasonable opportunity to prepare or submit evidence; abruptly changing the interview venue and format with little warning; mandating the children appear in court multiple times per month; and instructing immigration judges to rush to “complete” their detained immigrant children dockets by January 31, 2027.
To make matters worse, many of these children remain in federal immigration detention without access to independent legal representation because the government allowed the contract under which Plaintiffs provided these critical advocacy services to lapse earlier this year. Together, these coordinated inter-agency efforts to expedite the removal of unaccompanied children directly violate Congress’ intent for this uniquely vulnerable group to benefit from special care and procedures considering their tender age and the extraordinary complexities of navigating the U.S. immigration system without a parent or guardian.
In one instance, a child with a documented heart condition who applied for asylum based on her experiences of sexual abuse in her home country was forced to undergo an hours-long virtual asylum interview the day after being hospitalized for a cardiac event. During the interview, she requested to end the session because she was experiencing cardiac pain, visibly crying and clutching her heart. Instead of ending the interview, the officer insisted she continue. Only after hours of subjecting this child to severe mental and emotional distress did the officer agree to reschedule the interview.
“The government is dismantling longstanding policies and legal safeguards to accelerate the deportations of immigrant children," said Laura Nally, Director of the Children's Program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. "These protections exist because Congress recognized that unaccompanied children cannot effectively represent themselves in immigration court. We will continue fighting to ensure that children seeking safety are not railroaded by these unlawful and unprecedented attacks on their right to seek protection."
“It has become clear that the current administration is engaged in a coordinated, multi-faceted effort to target unaccompanied children and their families,” said Jessica Richardson, managing attorney of the Detained Minors Project at The Door. “As their representatives and often these children's only voices in a system determined to test the definition of cruelty, these attacks challenge our ability to fulfill our obligations and adhere to the highest ethical standards in our representation. We are asking simply that credibility, humanity and basic common sense be restored.”
"Since entering office, the administration has been systematically dismantling the protections that have been in place for immigrant children for decades," said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director at the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. "The government is prioritizing expediting the deportation of children over everything else, including due process and protecting children. As a result, children are trapped for months in immigration detention, prevented from reunifying with family or others who can care for them, all while being railroaded through their deportation cases and forced to face the full force of the United States government alone. Children deserve better. We will continue to fight to protect the rights of our clients and all children in ORR custody."
“By fast-tracking children’s cases at lightning speed, the government is systematically depriving unaccompanied children of their right to counsel and legally mandated due process protections,” said Chiqui Sanchez Kennedy, executive director, at GHIRP. “Our young clients are traumatized and vulnerable, yet they show remarkable resilience in the face of the government’s cruelty. Our team will continue to amplify their voices, ensure dignity in the process, and fiercely advocate to restore protections for immigrant children.”
“It is hard to imagine a greater abuse of power than the targeting of vulnerable children who cannot defend themselves,” said Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “This is a coordinated, whole-of-government effort to strip away the safeguards Congress put in place to protect children and instead replace them with a system whose sole objective is to deport children, oftentimes back into dangerous situations where they might be trafficked and even killed. The family separation crisis exposed this administration's willingness to traumatize children in order to terrorize their parents, and its current actions reveal how low the administration is willing to stoop to hit its increasingly unpopular deportation goals, even at the expense of children's safety and well-being. It's an utterly shameful and illegal scheme that must end immediately.”
“As a nation, we cannot stand by and allow the coordinated targeting of vulnerable immigrant children and the systematic dismantling of their rights,” said Jordan Golin, president and CEO of Jewish Family and Community Services (JFCS) Pittsburgh. “JFCS’s participation in this lawsuit is an extension of our legal representation of unaccompanied children and our commitment to their well-being. As advocates for kids who too often have no one else, we have a responsibility to challenge the systems and actions that threaten their rights, safety, well-being, and ultimately, their futures.”
"Multiple federal agencies are colluding to put vulnerable children on what amounts to a deportation assembly line,” said Lynn Damiano Pearson, director of legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center. “These are children even under 10 years old who do not and cannot understand why adults charged with protecting them are instead subjecting them to harm. Congress recognized the unique circumstances of unaccompanied children seeking safety and passed specific laws designed to protect them. The Trump administration's shameful treatment of unaccompanied children not only flies in the face of one of our society’s most basic values, but violates longstanding federal laws.”
"This administration is engaged in an all-out assault on the rights of unaccompanied children seeking safety,” said Melissa Crow, Director of Litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “We have both a legal and moral duty to protect these children, and our plaintiffs who work tirelessly to uphold that duty by providing high-quality legal representation. In return, the government is actively undermining their efforts, placing their clients on a deportation fast-track, abandoning due process, and returning vulnerable children to situations where they risk persecution and torture. It’s illegal, it’s dangerous, and it’s unimaginably cruel.”
“The government is succeeding in their plan to take a wrecking ball to long-standing protections for some of the most vulnerable children in this country. In their reckless rush to deport as many children as possible, including those that will be forced to return to dangerous, even life-threatening situations, they are flouting protections a bipartisan Congress put into place decades ago." said Mishan Wroe, a directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. "We will never stop fighting to uphold these protections and ensure children are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”
“This Administration has engaged in a shameful, unlawful effort aimed at forcing traumatized immigrant children to face the US Government machine alone,” said Marjorie Menza, Senior Attorney and Fellowship Director at Trial Impact Project. “It is a privilege to tell the story of those children and their heroic, tireless lawyers to ensure this Nation keeps its promises.”
The lawsuit argues federal agencies failed to follow the lawful process when they implemented new policies and practices for unaccompanied kids and that their actions violate children's right to due process under the Constitution and the will of Congress. Plaintiffs assert the administration is flouting the Administrative Procedure Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The defendants in the lawsuit are Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Joseph Edlow; U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin; Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review Sirce Owen; the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services; and the Department of Justice.
Read today’s filing here.