Michigan attorney speaks on federal cuts to legal service funding for migrant children

CBS News

26-03-2025

The Trump administration recently ended a federal contract that offers legal representation to more than 26,000 migrant children who enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian. Nearly 800 of those children are in Michigan.
"Eight hundred children will lose their advocates, they will lose counsel, they will lose they will have to essentially proceed on their own in immigration court," said Ruby Robinson, senior managing attorney for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC).
Robinson says this funding allows his team to provide comprehensive legal care for the hundreds of children who go through the process daily, including paying for the lawyers who advocate for them.
"One of the main reasons for these services is to prevent exploitation and trafficking and to ensure that children have access to the critical supports and services, and by taking away counsel, it undermines those efforts," said Robinson.
Robinson says many of the children in the process do not read or speak English or are too young to even communicate at all, leaving them vulnerable to faster deportation.
"It is cruel to require a child to participate in an immigration process by themselves, to be held to the same standard as an adult or an adult with counsel," said Robinson.
While MIRC does have donor support, Robinson says federal funding accounts for nearly 80 percent of its budget.
"We've been successful, in raising money, but it's not at the scale that we need to be able to preserve representation and assistance to the children who are here in Michigan and certainly nationally," said Robinson.
Robinson says his team is now focused on helping its fellow community organizations weather these changes and find ways to support those who need them.
"We will do our best to advocate as long as we can, with the staffing that we have and the funding that we have for our clients," said Robinson.