UPDATE: On February 21st, Casa Cornelia Law Center was informed by the Acacia Center for Justice that the U.S. Department of the Interior rescinded the Stop Work Order, allowing legal services for unaccompanied children to resume.
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Nonprofits helping unaccompanied minors in detention centers with legal services have just been served a stop-work order from the Trump Administration.
It's having an impact on immigration attorneys who said the stop-work order is unethical.
"This is an order going directly after children," Mickey Donovan-Kaloust, Director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center said.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center is based in Los Angeles, and they are a team of lawyers who represent unaccompanied minors. Their work is funded by the government, which is why they've just been told to stop all their services on behalf of their unaccompanied child clients.
"It is cruel and it's immoral from my perspective," Donovan-Kaloust said. "They are children and they're relying on us."
The stop work order was sent to Immigrant Defender's Law Center's prime contractor, Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit based in Washington D.C.
Acacia Center for Justice manages federal programs to provide legal services to non-citizens who are facing detention and deportation. It also helps over 26-thousand unaccompanied minors.
Cassandra Lopez, Managing Director of Learning and Development at Acacia Center for Justice, said, "We ensure that nonprofits are actually going into detention centers or meeting with individuals in their jurisdictions to ensure that they have access to those services."
Those services include helping children who have been separated from their families and representing them in immigration court.
This week, Acacia Center for Justice received a stop-work order specifically for the attorneys who go to the detention centers to help unaccompanied minors. The order read in part, 'The government hereby directs your firm to stop all work associated with the scope of the contract—Legal Services for Unaccompanied Minors.'
It went on to say that subcontractors needed to be notified. That included nonprofits Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
However, Donovan-Kaloust said despite what the work order said, her lawyers will not stop working.
"We know that there are unaccompanied children in San Diego who have been either detained in the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities in San Diego County or have been released to live with families in San Diego that are going to be impacted by the stop work order," Donovan-Kaloust said.
Casa Cornelia also wrote ABC 10News that it intends to "remain steadfast and continue advocating for unaccompanied minors despite the administration's decision to halt legal funding by the Office of Refugee Resettlement."
Another subcontractor under Acacia Center for Justice is San Diego attorney Andrew Nietor.
Nietor received a similar stop-work order weeks ago.
"The stop work order that was issued was against the Council for Children Initiative, a program in which I participate," Nietor said. "We received the notice without any warnings, so we were just basically told through an email that the funding had been terminated or at least paused."
Nietor is representing about 20 unaccompanied minors right now, helping children with specific court appearances, finding counseling services and educational programs, helping them find family members, and more.
He explains that many other immigration attorneys opened offices, hired staff, and have a ton of overhead that depends on federal dollars. The stop-work orders have now put those immigration attorneys in difficult situations.
"We were told to stop working on those cases, which is a bit problematic because these are children that we're already representing and that we've already developed relationships with," Nietor said.
Nietor said he other attorneys affected by these stop-work orders feel the same way.
"It was very frustrating for me because the population we're working with is one of the most vulnerable populations," Nietor said. "We as attorneys have an obligation to continue working with them."
The stop-work order that affected Nietor is now temporarily lifted as a restraining order was filed against it in the same week it was issued.
Donovan-Kaloust said Immigrant Defenders Law Center is exploring litigation options against the stop-work order.
Acacia Center for Justice said it is now looking for alternative funding to continue helping immigration lawyers.
