More than 4,000 immigrant children in California who crossed the border alone and have pending immigration cases may now lose their existing pro-bono legal representation because of a disagreement on the terms of a longstanding government contract that led to its termination.
Since the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act was passed in 2008, unaccompanied minors up to age 18 have been offered government-funded legal counsel “to the greatest extent practicable.”
After crossing the border, the minors are generally transferred from Department of Homeland Security custody to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and given support from a network of some 100 legal groups.
Under a longstanding arrangement, the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit, distributed government funds to subcontracting legal service providers. In 2025 they were planning to give $356 million. In the end, just $128 million was paid out during the year, according to federal records.
Beginning last November, however, the federal government stopped paying Acacia.
According to Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel, the chief of staff at the Acacia Center for Justice, the government would not approve the organization’s invoices until attorneys gave over “very detailed information about children’s cases, including their legal strategy, forms of relief sought and other information that falls within the ambit of attorney client privilege.”
“We refused,” said Rodriguez Schlegel. When it came time to negotiate a new contract, the same issue ensued and the contract was lost. The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to Mission Local’s question about the nature of the contract ending.
Unaccompanied children who have pending immigration cases go before a judge, and the opposing counsel represents the Department of Homeland Security, whose job is to enforce immigration laws.
Rodriguez Schlegel says one of their concerns in sharing data is that they would be sharing information with a potential “adverse party.”
Stephany Arzaga, the associate legal director at San Francisco’s Legal Services for Children, which represents unaccompanied minors locally, said her group has committed to using reserve funds to continue representing the children already on their client list.
For other legal organizations, that is not always feasible, she said.
But a Texas law firm with no expertise in immigration law or representing children was awarded a no-bid $150 million contract to represent immigrant children in court. The contract covers migrant children in shelter, not those in foster care or in the community.
The terms of the contract between the government and Burke Law Group, the new firm, such as respecting confidentiality, are not clear.
Many attorneys involved in working with unaccompanied immigrant children have been doing it for decades, and said that nobody in that world had heard of this new firm, said Rodriguez Schlegal.
The firm’s co-founder, Marcella Burke, previously served as a Trump appointee at the EPA and the Department of the Interior. Despite multiple attempts, Mission Local was unsuccessful in reaching the firm to understand more about the contract.
Attorneys at Arzaga’s organization represent young immigrants who are considered “detained,” and are under the government’s supervision through the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Once there, they are transferred to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter and then sometimes placed with a family sponsor, in a longer-term shelter, or in foster care.
In 2025, 103 unaccompanied minors in San Francisco were transferred into Office of Refugee Resettlement custody in this manner.
“Whether or not they entered with or without permission, they still have rights, and those rights are being infringed upon. This is a due process issue,” said Arzaga.
Nationwide, 1,384 unaccompanied youths have arrived in the United States so far this year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Last year, that number was 24,259 for the full year.
Arzaga, who helps train attorneys and social workers who represent and guide children through the process to legalize their status, emphasized the importance of trauma-informed services.
Often, the children are fleeing traumatic events such as sexual assault, physical violence and trafficking across the border. Many of them are around 14 to 17 years old and come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, among other countries.
Rodriguez Schlegel says that one of her main concerns with the new contract in Texas is that unaccompanied immigrant children will not have this kind of trauma-informed, specialized support in their immigration cases.
With their counseling curtailed or terminated, Arzaga said, children will have difficulty sharing information about their experiences, a necessary step in applying for immigration relief.
“This is all a concerted effort to push children to repatriate,” said Arzaga. “Kids are giving up. Kids cannot handle being stuck in custody.”
“Rodriguez Schlegel says one of their concerns in sharing data, is that they would be sharing information with a potential “adverse party.”
Of course. If you accept funding from your adversary then you understood, or surely should have understood, that there is a fundamental conflict of interest there.
Schlegal needs an independent source of funding. There is no reasonable expectation that the counterparty to your legal actions should fund your fight against them as well as fund their own efforts.