Thousands of children face deportation without attorneys after a non-profit in Arizona received a stop-work order for all services in immigration legal aid, education and assistance.
The Florence Immigration and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona was abruptly directed by the Trump Administration on Tuesday to immediately halt all services under the federally funded Unaccompanied Children Program.
They provide direct representation for children as well as other legal services through UCP funding. The Florence Project currently has around 800 open cases for unaccompanied child immigrants in Arizona.
Now, these children could be forced to represent themselves in court alone.
âWhat you would see when you walk into a courtroom is a child seated alone at a table, facing an immigration judge and navigating their immigration case without legal assistance,â Florence Project Executive Director Lillian R. Aponte said at a news conference Wednesday.
Unaccompanied children are, under federal law, placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. They receive shelter and medical care before being released to sponsors during immigration processes.
From Oct. 2023 to the end of December 2024, 1,441 children in Arizona were transitioned into sponsor care through this process.
Every child in resettlement custody receives legal services, consultations and a meeting with an attorney. Not every child has direct representation in court.
Even after family reunification, children continue through the legal proceedings and immigration case. If they receive a deportation order, they will be separated from their sponsor or family and deported.
Attorneys and resources from organizations like the Florence Project work to decrease the chances of this happening.
There are approximately 26,000 children in the U.S. who will lose their attorney as a direct result of this stop-work order. Some of these children are infants, human trafficking survivors and young mothers.
An increase in family separation is imminent as legal representation is threatened, representatives from non-profit organizations said at the news conference.
âWith this move, the U.S. government is officially abandoning thousands of children here in Arizona and across the country to fight their immigration cases alone,â Florence Project Deputy Director Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu said in a news release Tuesday.
The stop-work order is affecting other programs across the country who provide similar legal services.
This comes nearly a month after the federal government sent orders to organizations against bipartisan legal-aid programs for all detained immigrants.
The Florence Project was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging this Jan. 22 stop-work order.
The U.S. Justice Department repealed the action earlier this month.
But this current order is directed at children.
In 2018, the Trump Administration pursued the âzero-toleranceâ policy in which criminal prosecution of undocumented people was increased. This resulted in an unprecedented amount of family separations.
Aponte said that this policy allowed organizations to witness the full harm that family separation can cause, but even without it, they continue to happen in immigration cases.
âWe are still seeing family separations in different iterations,â Aponte said.
Because of the current stop-work order, family separations could increase again, but this time because of the deportation of the child.
Without legal representation, Aponte said the order removes the ability for children to âhave a just and fair chance at fighting their immigration case.â
The Florence Project provides weekly âKnow Your Rightsâ presentations and legal screenings to detainees in Arizona, including children, with over 10,000 participants in immigration detention facilities last year.
They also educate and represent children who are survivors of violence and trafficking.
Without federal funding, organizations are struggling to find ways to continue supporting children with social services and advocacy in and out of the court room.
Aponte said that the Florence Project will not abandon current clients because there is a critical need for representation of children.
âWe are prepared to use and steward the whole of our resources as an organization to provide those critical services,â Aponte said.
