The Trump administration on Wednesday abruptly scrapped a plan to recruit retiring Pentagon lawyers to represent unaccompanied minors in immigration court, a move that would have asked attorneys with little relevant legal experience to help migrant children facing deportation.
The shift deepened confusion about how the federal government planned to fulfill its legal obligation to protect the rights of the more than 20,000 unaccompanied minors with pending immigration cases, who advocates say are uniquely vulnerable amid the administration’s push for mass expulsions.
A federal contract with a network of legal nonprofit groups that had long represented unaccompanied minors ended last month. The Trump administration signed a short-term deal earlier this month with an organization best known for its focus on human trafficking, an arrangement that would provide the children with lawyers. Opponents of the move have noted that the group, Our Rescue, has little experience handling immigration court cases.
The administration had also been developing another stopgap measure. Officials with the Defense Department and the Health and Human Services Department, which is responsible for the welfare of migrant children who have no parent or legal guardian to care for them in the United States, told The New York Times earlier this week that the administration was recruiting Pentagon lawyers who had recently retired or had planned to retire soon to serve as attorneys for the children.
Such an arrangement would have been a departure from the kind of work typically provided by Pentagon lawyers, who have experience on a broad array of matters for the civilian and military branches of the armed services. That includes prosecuting or defending service members in courts-martial, reviewing contracts for new weapons and ensuring troops follow the laws of armed conflict.
By Wednesday afternoon, as The Times sought more information from H.H.S., the department said it was no longer pursuing the idea, which had not been disclosed publicly.
The agency said that for now, it would use short-term contracts to provide migrant children with lawyers in immigration court. It acknowledged that the administration was still seeking to identify a long-term legal service provider.
The department said in a statement that it remained “committed to ensuring all eligible unaccompanied children have legal representation during immigration proceedings.”
While immigrant advocates expressed relief that the plan to tap military lawyers was tossed, they said the patchwork plan to provide legal services could lead to more deportations of migrant children at a time when the Trump administration was trying to accelerate their removal. Court hearings and asylum interviews for many unaccompanied minors have been moved up in recent months, even as questions have swirled about who would represent them, immigration attorneys said.
“Bridge contracts are Band-Aids that are not stopping the wound,” said Michelle Brané, a former Department of Homeland Security official who led the family reunification task force under the Biden administration. “They help for some, but are not enough, and are not a long-term solution.”
The vast majority of unaccompanied minors who entered the United States have since been released to relatives or other sponsors. A much smaller number of children remain in shelters overseen by the Health and Human Services Department. In July, an average of about 1,800 children were in federal custody, according to department data.
Many children arrived at the border without a parent, often fleeing persecution or other hardship in their countries.
Shaina Aber, the executive director of Acacia Center for Justice, which manages a network that has provided migrant children with legal services, said the administration’s current approach left them vulnerable.
“Unaccompanied children need independent, ethically tethered, experienced lawyers who know how to work with them in a child-friendly” way, she said in a statement.
The federal government is required under law to provide legal services to unaccompanied children who are often too young to understand their rights, ranging from presentations about their rights to direct legal representation. That work has typically been contracted out to nonprofits whose lawyers have extensive experience representing and helping migrant children.
The federal government had a multiyear contract with the Acacia Center, an advocacy group that managed a national network of nonprofits that provided representation. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to halt funding for the groups, and only recently disbursed money it had withheld, following a federal court order.
The Acacia Center contract expired at the end of July. The center said it declined to sign a new contract because the Trump administration wanted it to share “confidential data about our young clients,” including unique identification numbers assigned by the Department of Homeland Security, and information about their immigration cases.
A Health and Human Services Department spokesperson said the administration was not requesting privileged, attorney-client information from the network, and had no intention of providing information it obtained to other government agencies.
The end of the Acacia Center’s contract set off a scramble among the nonprofits that had been providing legal representation. In an effort to prevent thousands of children from immediately losing access to lawyers, many groups have been fund-raising and relying on reserves to continue representing them.
Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Washington-based Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said his nonprofit was continuing to represent about 850 unaccompanied minors, even though its federal funding had lapsed. Mr. Lukens said his group was able to do so in part because of the funding the administration recently disbursed.
Still, he and others warned that those efforts were not sustainable. Some nonprofits said they were trying to transfer cases to pro bono attorneys.
“It’ll be a catastrophe for the children. You will see mass deportations,” Mr. Lukens said. “They’re making it very hard to fight these cases when you have an attorney, let alone without one.”
It is unclear if the roughly 20,000 cases handled by the network will be transferred to the government and its new contractors. Several nonprofits said in interviews that they had not been contacted by the government or its new legal service providers about transferring cases.
The Health and Human Services Department said it was working with other legal service providers, including the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, which is slated to provide unaccompanied children with lawyers through the end of December.
The department also awarded a $158 million contract for legal services to Our Rescue, the nonprofit. The contract has a “base period” of six months, running through early February, according to the department.
The deal has drawn intense scrutiny because the organization does not have extensive experience representing unaccompanied children in court.
Our Rescue said in a statement that it had “decades of experience supporting vulnerable children,” and that it welcomed the responsibility of working with unaccompanied minors to ensure they had access to qualified legal counsel.
The group was founded by Tim Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent who was accused by multiple women of being a sex predator. In several lawsuits, they said that Mr. Ballard preyed on their desire to help trafficking victims, coercing or forcing them into sexual encounters as part of their undercover work, The New York Times reported in 2024. Mr. Ballard has insisted that he did not engage in misconduct. While the courts have dismissed some of the legal claims against Mr. Ballard, multiple lawsuits remain active.
Our Rescue said in a statement that Mr. Ballard was no longer affiliated with the organization, and had not been involved since he left in 2023.
Another potential legal provider identified by the administration ultimately declined to do the work.
The Health and Human Services Department said on Aug. 6 that it intended to award up to $150 million in a no-bid contract to Burke Law Group, a small Texas firm that appeared to have limited immigration law experience and was led by attorneys with ties to President Trump. But this week, the department officially said the firm decided not to apply for the grant.
Marcella Burke, who held top positions at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency during the first Trump administration, said she explored the possibility of her firm assembling a network of lawyers to provide services to about 700 children. But during discussions with the Health and Human Services Department, she said it “became clear that the government’s proposed structure was not workable.”
“I became involved for one reason: children, some extremely young and facing heartbreaking circumstances,” Ms. Burke said in a statement. “All discussions were preliminary, and I never sought or accepted a grant of any amount.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
