Judge restores funds for lawyers representing children in immigration court
A federal judge in Northern California ordered the Trump Administration to temporarily restore legal funding for migrant children in immigration court.
Nonprofits representing unaccompanied minors challenged the administration in U.S. District Court Northern District California after the government notified them March 21 their contract would be terminated. The program provides legal representation to about 26,000 children, some too young to read or speak.
The groups held the government is legally obligated to provide representation to vulnerable children under a 2008 anti-trafficking law.
The government argued that funding was discretionary and the matter of a contract dispute.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco granted the nonprofits including Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center a restraining order Tuesday night.
'Terminating funding for direct legal representation for unaccompanied children, without any plan to ensure continuity in representation, potentially violates Congress's express directive in the TVRPA,' she said referencing the anti-trafficking law.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 provides special protections to children vulnerable to exploitation. It requires the government 'shall ensure, to the greatest extent practicable,' all unaccompanied children receive legal counsel to represent them in 'legal proceedings.'
The relief is temporary, but Martínez-Olguín said 'continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system.'
Johnathan Ross, who represented the government, said despite the cuts, the groups was free to continue offering pro bono services and pointed out that other parts of the contract including a know your rights program remained.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center had begun laying off dozens of staff, as had other groups. And lawyers for them said ending the program could immediately harm children with scheduled asylum appointments and court hearings.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kansas abortion clinic leader was ready for Missouri abortion ban, fears it won't be short-lived
Kathryn Boyd, the new CEO and president of the Wichita-based abortion clinic Trust Women, appeared on the Kansas Reflector podcast to discuss how Missouri's abortion ban might affect Kansans. (Submitted) TOPEKA — In May, as Kathryn Boyd began her new role as president and CEO of the Trust Women clinic in Wichita, one of the first conversations she had with the clinic's leaders was how to deal with a new ban in Missouri and what it might mean for Kansas. A late-May decision from a Missouri judge triggered an all-out ban on abortion in the state, but that wasn't much of a surprise to Kansas abortion providers who were preparing for the worst. The majority of abortion patients in Kansas already come from out of state, and now, Trust Women is making its physicians more available and expanding its hours to brace for an influx. 'This is a case of lawmakers who, despite what Missourians voted for, have decided that they're going to just throw that out the window and do what they want anyway,' Boyd said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. 'So I think my first reaction was like, OK, here we go again.' 'Before the ban, Missourians were able to receive abortion care in major cities, reversing years of restrictions implemented by state lawmakers. Those rulings came after voter approval of a constitutional amendment in November enshrining reproductive freedom in the state constitution. All of that was undone in a two-page ruling last month from Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Russell, who ordered Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang to vacate the December and February decisions and reevaluate the case, restoring a ban on abortions and restricting facility licensing. Health centers in Missouri provided care to people who wouldn't have to travel as far as they do now, Boyd said. Following the anger, fear and worry in the wake of the decision in Missouri, Boyd said the primary focus of Trust Women is to expand access. The clinic's message, she said, is, 'We're still here.' 'We're still providing care. We need to expand, and we need support. You know, that's really what it comes down to. And I think that that is a similar story of many, many providers throughout the country, regardless of what state they're in,' Boyd said. However, her fear is that the ban won't be short-lived. Boyd, who has worked in the field of abortion and reproductive care for years, entered the top job at Trust Women about a year after intense turmoil within the clinic. Reports of mass resignations and multiple leadership shakeups led the clinic to temporarily close its doors. Boyd, though she wasn't working at the clinic at the time, describes it as 'very, very hard' for the organization. 'Coming in after a culture shock like that can be really challenging for any leader,' Boyd said. 'Making sure that I come in with that in the back of my mind, I don't want that trauma to, like, dictate what we do going forward, but it definitely is like a side dish.' Her goal is to create a culture of transparency and collaboration, and that requires building back trust and listening, she said.
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
University of Michigan denounced for using private investigators to surveil student protesters
Pro-Palestinian protest on the UM campus on February 20, 2025 | Photo by Erick Diaz Veliz Josiah Walker has one year left until he graduates from the University of Michigan. However, since last summer, his college life had undergone an abrupt change when he realized he was being followed and recorded by several people while going about his daily activities on campus and around Ann Arbor. As it turns out, he wasn't the only one. According to The Guardian, they all shared the same pattern: the pro-Palestinian movement on campus. On Friday, The Guardian published a report in which a group of students accused the University of Michigan of hiring private undercover investigators from the Detroit-based firm City Shield to conduct covert surveillance both on and off campus of student pro-Palestinian activist groups. Walker is among the five U of M students who were interviewed in the report. They declared that they were trailed, eavesdropped on, recorded, and verbally harassed by what they considered intimidation tactics from the university. They said they recognized dozens of investigators, often working in teams, who were behind their steps around campus and Ann Arbor, sometimes sitting at nearby tables at cafes and bars. 'The same people and vehicles kept popping up everywhere I went on and even off campus. Each individual would execute some combination of recording and following me,' Walker told the Advance. The Guardian investigation determined that the private investigators are employees of City Shield. According to university spending records from June 16, 2023, through September 15, 2024, the university paid at least $850,000 to City Shield's parent company, Ameri-Shield. 'The university had used a lot of its own resources to uplift my previous involvements and accomplishments. Now, I'm on the other side where the university is using those same resources to try to destroy my future and, quite frankly, seriously injure or kill me,' Walker told the Advance. These students started to record, identify, and confront the undercover investigators by themselves, resulting in tense interactions recorded on video. Katarina Keating, also one of the students interviewed by The Guardian, is a PhD candidate and a member of the Graduate Employees' Organization. She recounted to the Advance that she noticed she was being followed in early November last year. She said she started seeing the same person following her after protests or events, and even weekly in the last months. Walker said he began to feel watched last year when he noticed that many people were continuously recording and following him; therefore, he started to record them in return. He shared the videos of those encounters with the Advance, also posted in the report, of himself recognizing and confronting those The Guardian reported are undercover investigators, including an interaction in which the alleged investigator, who is white, appears to falsely accuse Walker, who is Black, of trying to steal his wallet. During another of those interactions, he says a car from where he was being recorded almost hit him, making him fear for his life since then. 'The threat has already presented itself. This is what City Shield employees or university contractors were willing to do on camera when it was very obvious that I was recording them as I was holding my phone at chest level. There's no telling what they're willing to do off-camera,' Walker said to the Advance. Another video Walker shared with the Advance shows the same man sitting inside his parked vehicle and initially pretending to be hearing impaired, including speaking in an impeded manner, before switching to a normal voice. Michigan Advance requested an interview with a university spokesperson, but instead were directed to a public email from the interim university President, Domenico Grasso, regarding the investigation. 'At the University of Michigan, simultaneously keeping our campus safe and welcoming is a top priority,' Grasso said. 'We recently learned that an employee of one of our security contractors has acted in ways that go against our values and directives. What happened was disturbing, unacceptable, and unethical, and we will not tolerate it.' Additionally, Grasso said the university was terminating all contracts with vendors to provide plainclothes security on campus. The university also provided a campus security statement issued Sunday, saying that 'recent media reports have mischaracterized the role of contract security personnel who were engaged solely to support campus safety efforts,' and denying that the university had requested the services of private investigators to monitor U of M students on or off campus. Both statements explained that as part of a 'security strategy' during 2024, the university augmented contracts with outside firms of plainclothes security personnel in order to 'provide discreet awareness of potential illegal activities without escalating tensions,' said the updated statement. Grasso recommended reporting any inappropriate behavior by contractors or employees to campus police or the Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX Office. 'It's certainly not 'safe and welcoming' for the dozens of students and community members who have been banned from campus for participating in protests. Grasso should reverse these campus bans next,' said Keating to the Advance in response to the statements. Walker declared to the Advance that, as of the time of publication of this report, U of M has not reached him to offer support or in response to the investigation by The Guardian, and so far, he believes he is still being monitored. 'It's really unfortunate. There's no doubt that if City Shield operatives or university police see me, they're going to continue to monitor me. They'll probably just try to be more discreet about it,' said Walker. The student accusations come as part of a series of rifts in the already strained relationship between the university administration and pro-Palestinian groups, including accusations of vandalism against individuals in the groups, and alleged selective targeting by authorities. Walker was among a group of students charged in September 2024 with trespassing and/or resisting university police during the raid on the pro-Palestinian encampment at the Ann Arbor campus' Diag in May 2024. The trespassing charges were later dismissed. In April, the pro-Palestinian activist group, TAHRIR coalition, alleged that some of their members were targeted in raids by the FBI at the houses where they live, authorized by Attorney General Dana Nessel. The raids were carried out in Ypsilanti, Canton, and Ann Arbor by unmarked vehicles accompanied by the Michigan State Police and local police officers. Pro-Palestinian activists were also accused by the university police earlier this month of damaging and vandalizing hundreds of flowers at the university's famed peony gardens after they found papers signed with pro-Palestinian slogans. 'The university has 100% selectively prioritized rights such as freedom of expression and movement. If a cause has even a remotely favorable view of Palestine or Palestinians, one can expect fierce university opposition,' Walker told the Advance. Despite the actions of the university and its contractors being publicized, Walker doesn't feel completely at ease because he worries the university could still take various measures against him. 'On one hand, it feels liberating to be able to raise awareness about what's been happening,' Walker told the Advance. 'On the other hand, I can't help but know that the university police department and City Shield are probably looking for ways to retaliate against me.' Both Walker and Keating say college life is no longer the same and that they no longer socialize freely, to the point that Walker warns his close friends to be careful around him so they don't endanger themselves, while Keating is always watching people around her. 'My life has changed in that I'm on high alert any time I am walking around campus, which is essentially every workday. I'm always looking around to see if someone is watching or following me,' Keating said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Washington Post
9 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Doechii's closing WorldPride set ended a tense weekend on a high note
Nightclubs. Karaoke spots. House party living rooms. Wedding reception halls. All fine places to dance your life away. But nothing beats the streets. Without ceilings or walls to keep the music from flying off into oblivion, we keep our dancing shoes pressed to the pavement, catching the rhythm with our bodies, circulating it among an assembly of strangers like some game of metaphysical pinball. Or at least that's what seemed to be happening smack in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue NW on Sunday evening as Doechii, the lightning-mouthed Florida rap star, delivered a galvanizing closing set at this year's WorldPride celebration in Washington — a boisterous affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community's perseverance and purpose that might have felt overwhelming had it not been such electric fun. This was a happy conclusion to a difficult week. WorldPride is the largest Pride Month celebration on the planet, but this year, its proximity to President Donald Trump's White House charged the festivities with tensions and safety concerns. As the Trump administration continues to erode transgender rights and dissolve diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, fearful corporate sponsors withheld their cash. On a day's notice, Shakira canceled her opening-night concert at Nationals Park, citing an insurmountable production glitch. Over the weekend, federal authorities attempted to fence off Dupont Circle Park, the center of the city's historic LGBTQ neighborhood, but the park ultimately stayed open. At least on Sunday night, without anxiety or ambiguity, Pennsylvania Avenue belonged to the people — many of them wearing colorful T-shirts adorned with even more colorful phrases that made their opposition to oppression abundantly clear. 'WorldPride 2025 is an act of resistance,' organizer Rahul Upadhyay said onstage before Doechii's set. 'This is what hope looks like. This is what family looks like.' Once Doechii appeared — frontlit in green, backlit in pink, braids swinging down to her heels — it also looked like a party. Still floating on the runaway success of her zesty 2024 album 'Alligator Bites Never Heal,' her performance landed like hard evidence of rap music's synchronizing power. When she launched into her signature tale of a stressed-out crash out, 'Denial Is a River,' fans two blocks deep in the crowd were rattling off Doechii's zigzag lyrics as if reciting a shouted prayer — 'Whoopsie! Made an oopsie! One-hundred-thousand dollar 'oops' made me loopy!' — all the way down to the panicked breathing of the song's finale. If you'd ever hoped to feel a sense of community by standing in a throng of many-thousands, pretending to hyperventilate in unified glee, here you were. 'Easy, breezy, beautiful, erratic,' Doechii rapped by way of self-description over the jazzy boom-bap of 'Boiled Peanuts,' positing herself as a stylistic heir to Missy Elliott, eager to express her messy multitudes with airlocked precision. Legible and danceable, her intentionality felt so well-suited for a celebration like this. In life writ large — which includes music-making, party-throwing, meal-making, getting dressed, sports, sex, watching television and more — spontaneity is all well and good, but sometimes being deliberate is a necessity. A party on this grand of a scale with this depth of purpose doesn't tend to erupt in the streets on a whim. As with a Doechii song, pleasure requires preparation. As for the gratitude, it flowed both ways. 'I've never felt so much love and peace from a community in my entire life,' Doechii told the crowd, catching her breath between rhyming sprints. The crowd roared. The music thundered. The people moved. Pennsylvania Avenue isn't the street the president lives on. It's a dance floor.
