In 2019, she came here at 16, alone. Within weeks, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement released her to a family member in New York, and I was assigned her case. By 2021, she had a green card.
That is what this work can and should look like. Not anymore.
Earlier this month, I returned to immigration court for the first time since the federal contract funding legal representation for more than 20,000 unaccompanied children expired on July 31.
Before I walked in, I read that the Trump administration had awarded a $150 million contract to represent detained children to a law firm with no apparent background in immigration law. (After a public outcry, the firm ultimately withdrew from consideration.) The administration also awarded a contract to Our Rescue “to ensure continuity of legal services for unaccompanied alien children.” Our Rescue has faced intense scrutiny over a range of troubling issues.
These decisions foreshadowed what was to come when the docket began.
A 10-year-old girl with pigtails appeared before the judge. The judge asked if she had an attorney. She did not.
Next was a detained teenage boy who spoke K’iche’, a Mayan language from Guatemala’s highlands. The judge ordered him to file an asylum application in English before his next hearing and told him to find an interpreter. The court doesn’t have a K’iche’-to-English interpreter; his hearing required relay interpretation through Spanish. Without an assigned legal service provider, he must use his limited phone access to either contact family or seek an attorney who can help and hope they have an interpreter. The judge’s instruction amounted to: figure it out.
She issued continuances for other children — just one week to find an attorney. I felt burning shame for our country, deciding this is an acceptable way to treat vulnerable children. We were there for our clients, but the children with no one appeared alone.
At The Door, we represent more than 300 unaccompanied minors across New York City, Westchester and Long Island. They go to school here, shop in our stores and play in our parks. They are part of this city, and we have an ethical, legal and human obligation to see their cases through.
Since December, the administration withheld payment for our work — not because it stopped, but because it demanded confidential client information protected by attorney-client privilege. It froze payments, allowed the contract to expire and called it a policy decision. The Door is owed nearly $2 million for completed work; nationwide, nearly 100 legal service providers are owed more than $65 million.
At a moment when Washington is retreating from its responsibilities, New York is stepping up for vulnerable immigrant children. Gov. Hochul announced $7.25 million in new funding to provide legal services for approximately 1,400 unaccompanied immigrant children and youth in New York who are facing active removal proceedings, including the more than 250 children who are currently detained. Mayor Mamdani just announced a $16.9 million investment in immigration legal services specifically for unaccompanied children.
New York’s actions are a clear statement that due process still matters and children deserve a fair hearing before life-altering decisions are made about their futures. It’s also a reminder that states can choose fairness, decency, and the rule of law even when the federal government is not.
New York is showing what leadership looks like when Washington fails and other states should follow. No child should have to face a trained government attorney — and the threat of deportation — alone.
Shah is managing director of the Legal Services Center at The Door — A Center of Alternatives, a nonprofit serving young New Yorkers ages 12 to 24.