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City advocates say federal legal funding cuts put unaccompanied immigrant children at risk
Summary
Legal service providers told the City Council that near‑total terminations of federal funding for unaccompanied children are forcing lawyers to continue pro bono work and prompting staff layoffs; advocates asked the Council for emergency city funds to stabilize services.
Legal service providers and a citywide coalition described abrupt federal terminations of grants for legal screening and representation for unaccompanied immigrant children, and said the result is an immediate access‑to‑justice crisis.
Sierra Craft of the Eye Care Coalition told the Council that nearly all federal support for unaccompanied children had been cut, leaving more than 1,100 children in New York City with open immigration cases without funded legal services. “Without an attorney, their chance of remaining safely in the U.S. is over 90 percent. And without 1, that drops below 15 percent,” Craft said, urging the Council to provide emergency funding to stabilize legal representation.
Joseph Rosenberg of Catholic Charities described terminated contracts for legal services for unaccompanied minors and for immigration court clinics, and said his organization is scrambling to cover representation for more than 600 minors it previously served. “We will try to find ways to continue to represent unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers without having to rely on the federal government, but it will be a daunting and long term challenge,” Rosenberg said.
Nut graf: Witnesses said the elimination of federal funding administered through the Office of Refugee Resettlement and other federal programs has immediate legal and life‑safety consequences for young immigrants and urged the Council to allocate emergency city resources and increase funding for nonprofit legal providers while pressing Congress to restore funding.
Several witnesses reported that some providers have continued representing children pro bono but that model is unsustainable. The Eye Care Coalition provided a specific emergency request of $6,297,000 to stabilize legal services for unaccompanied children in New York City.
Ending: Council members heard testimony about the disruption in legal services and discussed next steps for emergency city support and federal advocacy. No formal City Council actions were taken at the hearing.
