Justice Department can cut funding for legal guidance for people facing
deportation, US judge says
[April 16, 2025]
By REBECCA BOONE and CEDAR ATTANASIO
A federal judge on Tuesday allowed the Justice Department to temporarily
stop funding legal education programs for people facing deportation or
immigration court while a lawsuit brought by the organizations that
provide the service moves forward in court.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss in Washington,
D.C., means a coalition of nonprofit groups that offer the education
programs will lose their federal funding Wednesday — and possibly some
access to potential clients inside detention centers.
Unlike criminal cases, people in immigration courts and detention
centers don’t have a right to an attorney if they can’t afford one
themselves. Proponents of the legal education programs say they ease the
burden on immigration judges and help immigrants navigate the
complicated court system more efficiently.
Congress allocates $29 million a year for four programs — the Legal
Orientation Program, the Immigration Court Helpdesk, the Family Group
Legal Orientation and the Counsel for Children Initiative — and those
groups spread the funding to subcontractors nationwide.
The Justice Department first instructed the nonprofit groups to “stop
work immediately” on the programs on Jan. 22, citing an executive order
from President Donald Trump targeting illegal immigration.
The nonprofit groups sued about a week later, and the Justice Department
then rescinded the stop-work order. But on April 11, the agency said it
was terminating its contracts with the groups nationwide, effective
12:01 a.m. April 16.
During a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Moss told attorneys on both sides
that he didn't see enough immediate justification to order the Justice
Department to keep the funding in place for now.
Still, Moss said he wanted more information before hopefully coming to a
final decision in the case next month.
When the Justice Department first ordered the work stopped in January,
the nonprofit groups were also cut off from even reaching out to
immigration detainees, said Laura Sturges, an attorney representing the
nonprofit groups.
That access was cut off so completely that they were even ordered to
remove informational posters and other educational materials from
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, Sturges said.
That damaged the First Amendment rights of the organizations to
disseminate information, she said, and left noncitizens without any
legal aid, placing a greater burden on immigration judges and
immigration courts.
Sturges said the funding cuts wrongly usurped Congress' spending power,
because the money had already been allotted and the Justice Department
had not yet identified any replacement programs to use the funds. And
she argued the cuts were arbitrary and capricious because the Justice
Department didn't provide any justification for ending the contracts
other than “convenience.”
But Justice Department attorney Zachary Sherwood told the judge that the
case was essentially a contract dispute, and shouldn't be handled in
U.S. District Court at all. Instead, Sherwood said, the dispute should
be moved to the Court of Federal Claims, which handles most
contract-related claims against the federal government.
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Migrants walk into Mexico after being deported from the United
States at El Chaparral pedestrian border bridge in Tijuana, Mexico,
Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
“I think there are a number of substantial and important issues that
this case presents,” Moss said.
He gave the attorneys a list of details he wants before the next hearing
on May 14, including any records showing how the Justice Department
decided to end the contracts, any plans for spending the earmarked money
in the future, and information about any problems the nonprofit groups
experience as they try to reach out to detained noncitizens in the
coming weeks.
A few blocks away from the federal immigration courts in New York City,
a leader of one affected program testified at a city council hearing on
immigration fraud.
“We’re often the first attorneys people are able to speak to about their
immigration cases,” said Hannah Strauss, an immigration lawyer who
supervises a team triaging cases for the Immigration Court Helpdesk run
by Catholic Charities.
New York state is one of only six states in the U.S. where more than
half of immigrants are represented by an attorney in pending immigration
cases, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That’s thanks in part to
state and city grants, as well as a large pool of lawyers who volunteer.
But federal funding forms an important part of the system.
Strauss said the $1.2 million federal grant covering New York covered
the Helpdesk, a skeleton crew relied upon by other nongovernmental
organizations to screen immigration referrals and by immigration judges
to explain the basics on laws regarding asylum and other forms of legal
immigration.
“Unfortunately today marks the final day of both ICH and FGLOP, as the
federal government has chosen to terminate our contracts as of midnight
tonight,” said Strauss, referring to her organization and the Family
Group Legal Orientation Program, run by the Acacia Center for Justice.
The main reason for falling prey to immigration scams is the lack of
legitimate legal help, said immigrants at the hearing who testified
without using their names, citing fear they could become targets of ICE
for speaking out. Details they shared were representative of cases that
have been investigated by federal prosecutors, costing immigrants
thousands of dollars.
In the hearing, the city council discussed ways to crack down on
immigration service providers advertising exaggerated or outright
fraudulent services.
___
Boone reported from Boise, Idaho, and Attanasio reported from New York.
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