The Door v. Edlow

For decades, unaccompanied children fleeing persecution or torture have had the right to pursue asylum in the United States through a non-adversarial interview. Our laws make clear that these children should be represented by qualified, independent attorneys in their immigration proceedings. Congress designed this process to account for children’s vulnerability and their inability to navigate the complex U.S. immigration system alone. However, since at least July 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) have launched a series of policy changes undermining key protections afforded to unaccompanied children.

Specifically, USCIS has accelerated asylum interviews for unaccompanied children, demanding that they and their attorneys prepare with little notice, in some cases within less than 24 hours. When attorneys try to reschedule—often because USCIS has double-booked (or even triple- or quadruple-booked) them for asylum interviews—they are prevented from doing so. To make matters worse, USCIS has begun scheduling virtual asylum interviews for detained unaccompanied children for the first time. In-person interviews are a crucial part of the asylum process, especially for vulnerable children. The physical presence and support of an attorney can make all the difference for children being asked to disclose the most traumatic moments of their lives to an unfamiliar asylum officer. Whether virtual or in person, under the administration’s policies, these interviews are rushed, with USCIS instructing case managers to issue decisions in affirmative asylum cases within 24 hours of interviews. From there, they are often rapidly referred to immigration court for deportation proceedings.

As a result of the government's policies, unaccompanied children and their counsel are being deprived of meaningful access to the asylum process. These policies are undermining the work of advocates representing children, depriving them of adequate time to prepare their clients’ cases and in some cases preventing them from appearing for their clients’ interviews at all by double-booking them. Exacerbating these significant barriers to due process, many affected children have no access to independent legal representation because in July 2026, the government allowed the contract under which the plaintiffs in this case and other organizations provide representation to unaccompanied children to lapse.