Justice Department restarts legal aid programs for detained immigrants

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

The U.S. Department of Justice reversed a recent order preventing legal aid groups from providing services to immigrants in federal detention centers and immigration courts after the Trump administration was sued for freezing federal payments.

On Jan. 22, a DOJ memo told legal providers to “stop work immediately” in the four programs that provide legal services to detained immigrants, including the Legal Orientation Program, which Congress has funded since 2003. The other programs include Immigration Court Helpdesk, Counsel for Children Initiative and Family Group Legal Orientation Program.

“We welcome the news that the stop-work order on Acacia’s legal access programs has been lifted,” said Shaina Aber, Executive Director of the Acacia Center for Justice, which is the contractor that has provided legal services for detained migrants. “We will continue working alongside the Department of Justice to ensure that these critical services and bastions of due process are fully restored and our partners in the legal field can resume their work without future disruption or delay.”

Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and other nonprofit immigrant rights organizations — including one in Austin and one in El Paso — sued the Trump administration on Friday, saying the DOJ’s stop-work order was illegal but also would have “devastating and irreparable effects” on detained migrants.

The Acacia Center for Justice said a federal judge, ruling in a different lawsuit, ordered the Trump administration to restore federal funding for grants and other programs that it had abruptly frozen.

The programs provide legal services to immigrants facing deportation. There are 3.5 million cases in immigration courts nationwide, up from about half a million in 2014. Many of them are asylum claims, which can take up to five years to resolve.

Unlike defendants in the criminal justice system, detained migrants don’t have a right to an attorney but can seek one on their own. About 25% of immigrants have a lawyer to represent them during immigration court proceedings, according to an analysis of immigration data by the Vera Institute for Justice, a criminal justice reform advocacy group based in New York. According to the National Immigrant Justice Center, immigrants with a lawyer are more likely to win their cases.

Edna Yang, co-executive director of Austin-based American Gateways, said in a court filing that without legal services the organization provides, some migrants may be deported because they weren’t informed about their rights. American Gateways, an immigrant rights advocacy group and subcontractor for the federal program, served 7,000 detained migrants in 2024 across three immigration detention centers in Texas.

Melissa Mari Lopez, executive director of Estrella Del Paso, which also provides legal services in immigration courts and a migrant detention center, said without federal funding, it would cost the group $83,000 a month to continue providing legal services for migrants.

“For an organization our size in El Paso, the monthly cost is incredibly difficult to make up at the pace that is needed,” she said.