Chicago organization fuming after federal cuts target legal aid for migrant children
A new round of federal cuts is hitting legal aid workers for undocumented children of migrants — including hundreds of kids in the Chicago area.
When those federal dollars came to a halt, organizations were left fuming, frustrated, and more focused on their cases.
When Chicago welcomed undocumented migrants from buses shipped from Texas, some were minors. A total of 500 unaccompanied migrant children currently live across Chicago and Northwest Indiana.
The National Immigrant Justice Center is one organization helping them fight the legal process.
"The vast majority of unaccompanied children have protection available to them if they are able to apply for it," said Azadeh Erfani of the National Immigrant Justice Center. "However, the system currently requires for them to actually have access to legal representation."
Yet Tuesday, the Trump administration cut all federal dollars that provided the migrants any legal help.
"Taking lawyers away is a very effective way to ensure that children will fail in court, and that they will be promptly deported to the conditions that they fled," said Erfani.
This comes as the Trump administration won in federal court. Fourteen states, including Illinois, sued to block the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from firing employees and accessing department data.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan declined to block the actions by DOGE.
Meanwhile, CBS News has learned Elon Musk and his DOGE team are also working to access private taxpayer data.
"You look at some of the waste, fraud, and abuse that's being uncovered by DOGE," President Trump said Tuesday. "They're finding levels of fraud and waste and abuse like I think nobody ever thought possible."
The Trump administration said it plans to use the data to find undocumented immigrants collecting any benefits.
There are an estimated 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children's cases pending nationwide.
"it's a fraction of the overall budget for this federal government," Erfani said. "Cutting it makes absolutely no sense."
The National Immigrant Justice Center said while providing legal help, it also keeps immigrant children away from human trafficking and out of trouble.
The organization plans to fight the eliminated funding in court this week.
