Trump Administration Scraps Pentagon Lawyer Plan for 20,000 Migrant Children

2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 20

More than 20,000 unaccompanied minors with pending immigration cases were left in deeper uncertainty after the administration dropped a stopgap plan to use retiring Pentagon lawyers as their attorneys.
The proposal would have assigned military legal staff with little immigration-court experience to children facing deportation, raising concerns about how the government would meet its duty to protect their rights.
That fallback emerged after a federal contract with longtime nonprofit legal providers ended last month, disrupting established representation for migrant children.
The administration earlier this month signed a short-term deal with Our Rescue, an anti-trafficking group critics say has limited experience handling immigration cases, underscoring the ad hoc search for replacement counsel.