Unaccompanied Children Have a Legal Right to Counsel. The Government Cannot Ignore the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA)
By: Adina Appelbaum, Program Director of
The Immigration Impact Lab at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights
Unaccompanied immigrant children who arrive in the United States without a parent or legal guardian - some still learning to walk, others carrying years of trauma - are forced to navigate one of the most complex legal systems in the country: deportation proceedings in immigration court, against a government-trained attorney. These children often do not speak English and cannot possibly understand the charges against them or the legal standards that determine whether they can seek protection to remain safe in the United States. Yet in March 2025, the federal government attempted to eliminate the legal services required by Congress and designed to protect these vulnerable youth.
Our lawsuit challenges that unlawful action, and at its core defends a simple truth: to the greatest extent practicable, unaccompanied children have a statutory right to legal representation under federal law, and the government cannot turn its back on that obligation.
What the TVPRA Requires
The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) is the most critical child-protection statute for immigrant youth. It was enacted in 2008 with broad bipartisan support to safeguard children who arrive alone at our borders, often fleeing violence, trafficking, or persecution.
And the law is unequivocal. The TVPRA provides that the government “shall ensure, to the greatest extent practicable,” that all unaccompanied children receive legal counsel in immigration proceedings to protect them from “mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.” Pub. L. No. 110-457, § 235(c)(5), 122 Stat. 5044, 5079.
Congress did not make this optional. It did not authorize the government to provide legal services only when politically expedient. It required the government to ensure representation because lawmakers understood that without lawyers, unaccompanied children cannot meaningfully access the protections Congress created for them. This is exactly why Congress has repeatedly appropriated funds for legal services with the understanding they would be used for this purpose.
Why Legal Representation Is Crucial - and Effective
The scenes playing out in immigration courts nationwide reveal what's at stake. Without legal counsel, babies who cannot speak or walk, toddlers whose feet barely touch the floor, and young children staring silently at judges speaking a language they do not understand all face life-altering legal ramifications, including deportation to places where they face persecution, trafficking, torture, or death. As our complaint describes, a federal judge in 2018 confronted the absurdity of expecting children to represent themselves alone when faced with a one-year-old child who could not possibly comprehend the charges against him. The judge acknowledged there was no way to explain the proceedings unless “you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law.”
This is more than heartbreaking - it is unjust and unlawful.
Legal representation is not simply a moral necessity; it is also a functional one. When children have an attorney by their side, immigration courts operate more efficiently, cases move faster, and due process is more protected. Attorneys help children understand their rights, gather evidence, identify eligibility for relief, and ensure the court receives the information it needs to make lawful decisions. Eliminating counsel does the opposite: it destabilizes the court system, burdens judges, increases the risk of wrongful deportations, and ultimately harms children.
The Government’s Own Regulations Confirm These Rights
The TVPRA is not the only source of the government’s obligation. In 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) codified these requirements in the Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule, which mandates that the government fund legal service providers to deliver direct representation when appropriations are available. 45 C.F.R. pt. 410 (2025).
These regulations were not advisory. They were adopted to implement Congress’ statutory TVPRA protections and to ensure children have access to counsel throughout their immigration cases. The agency cannot now disregard the TVPRA and its own binding rule simply because the current administration disagrees politically.
Why We Went to Court
In March 2025, the Trump administration abruptly terminated funding for the nationwide legal services programs that serve unaccompanied children, the Unaccompanied Children’s Program (UCP). The cancellation order offered no explanation, provided no legal justification, and ignored decades of bipartisan support for these essential protections.
The consequences were immediate: more than 26,000 unaccompanied children across the country were at risk of losing their attorneys overnight. These children - many fleeing trafficking, abuse, and extreme violence - rely on legal counsel as their only defense against deportation. Without attorneys, they are effectively forced to navigate the immigration system alone to seek the protections federal law provides.
Our lawsuit - CLSEPA v. HHS - brought by 11 legal services organizations and co-counseled with Justice Action Center, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Gibson Dunn - challenges this unlawful termination in federal court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The courts have repeatedly agreed that the government’s actions cannot stand. A federal judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order and then a Preliminary Injunction requiring the government to restore funding for these services in full. The government has tried multiple times to overturn those rulings - and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has already rejected their attempts multiple times. The district court has also denied the government’s motion to dismiss, allowing our claims to proceed.
The New Threat: Privatizing Children’s Legal Services
Even as the courts block unlawful efforts to eliminate unaccompanied children’s legal services, a new threat has emerged. As reported by The Lever in its investigation, “Trump Is Poised to Privatize Legal Aid for Migrant Children,” the administration is now seeking to privatize unaccompanied children’s legal representation. This move likely shifts these services to a for-profit ICE contractor and partner organization Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) and imposes dangerous requirements, replaces in-person services with virtual videos, slashes funding through fixed-fee contracts designed for private vendors, and results in significantly fewer children receiving representation.
Privatization threatens to gut the quality and independence of legal services, violate ethical standards, and create a system where profit, not child welfare, drives decision-making. It would replace community-based legal service provider experts - many of whom have decades of experience representing traumatized immigrant children - with contractors who are neither required nor equipped to provide sufficient trauma-informed, child-appropriate legal counsel.
This new threat underscores exactly why the TVPRA exists: to protect children. And it makes our litigation even more urgent: in November 2025, the administration published a Request for Proposals (RFP) outlining a new plan that would significantly curtail the provision of legal services for unaccompanied children. In late December 2025, HHS stated it would amend the RFP in response to a bid protest. We expect HHS to publish its amended RFP in the near future, and plan to take appropriate measures to protect children’s rights under the TVPRA. The law requires the government to ensure unaccompanied children receive legal counsel to the greatest extent practicable - not to hand that responsibility over to private for-profit interests.
The Road Ahead
Our fight continues because the lives and safety of tens of thousands of children each year depend on it. The TVPRA represents Congress’s clear commitment to protecting unaccompanied children, and federal courts have affirmed that the government must follow the law. As we continue litigating this case, the principle at stake remains simple:
No child should face immigration court alone.
We invite you to follow the course of litigation: https://treatkidslikekids.org.