A district court judge on Tuesday ordered the federal government to restore its contract with an organization providing legal services to families who were separated during President Donald Trump’s first term. The Department of Justice had abruptly canceled the contract in April, a move the American Civil Liberties Union argued violated a 2023 settlement agreement.
“We’re relieved about the court's order that came down last night,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, managing director for legal access programs at Acacia Center for Justice, which administered the program for the Department of Justice. ”We're still awaiting communication from the government about resumption of those services. And we look forward to working with the Department of Justice.”
The settlement agreement, reached between the ACLU and the Biden administration after nearly six years of litigation, aimed to remedy some of the damage done to migrant families by Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” border enforcement policy starting in 2017. The policy unfolded chaotically, with families forcibly separated at the border and then effectively lost in a haphazard maze of detention and relocation.
Roughly 5,000 family members were separated during Trump’s first term, and according to the ACLU, as many as 1,000 children remain separated from deported parents today.
The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government over “Zero Tolerance” in February of 2018, arguing that separating families was unnecessary under the law and that the policy deprived migrant families of their right to due process.
Before approving the settlement, federal Judge Dana Sabraw, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego, said family separation “represents one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country.”
While recognizing the value of the relief granted by the court for separated families, Hofwegen said it’s “just one step in what they need.”
Along with providing housing assistance and mental health treatment, the settlement agreement requires that separated family members and certain relatives have access to legal help in navigating the process of applying for temporary residency status in the U.S., work permits and asylum.
The DOJ provided funding to Acacia Center for Justice, a national nonprofit, and nine subcontractor organizations around the country, including two in California, to provide those services, which include legal advice, help with immigration applications and referrals for pro bono representation. Less than three months after Trump took office, the Justice Department canceled the contract with Acacia.
Citing a breach of the settlement agreement, the ACLU asked Judge Sabraw to intervene. In ensuing hearings, the ACLU argued that the government could not ensure services would continue, putting separated family members at risk of losing their permission to work and, ultimately, to stay in the country.
The Justice Department said it planned to provide some of the services through the immigration court system itself, and the rest would be covered by pro bono attorneys. But the ACLU argued the government’s plan was unrealistic.
“We’re talking about thousands of cases,” Lee Gelernt, lead attorney for the ACLU, told the judge April 30. “It takes a lot of work to get a firm to take one [pro bono] case.”
In court filings last week, the Justice Department admitted it had not connected anyone covered by the settlement agreement with a pro bono attorney since it took over responsibility for providing services on May 1st.
In his order, Judge Sabraw wrote that the government had failed to demonstrate that it could provide the same services Acacia had and that no viable alternative had been offered. He pointed out that the Justice Department’s plan to rely on pro bono attorneys had, in part, been hampered by the Trump administration’s cancellation of other federal contracts, including one that funded an information hotline for detained immigrants. “Since Acacia’s contract expired, the pro bono landscape has only deteriorated because of funding cuts and staffing shortages,” Sabraw wrote.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the sub-agency the Justice Department had charged with administering legal services to separated families, said it does not comment on litigation-related matters. The department also declined to comment on the decision.
Judge Sabraw set a hearing for June 27 to assess the government’s progress in restoring services.
Van Hofwegen said it will take months for Acacia’s subcontractors to rehire staff who were laid off during the work stoppage and to reestablish communication with members of the class-action lawsuit who were told services were no longer available.
The settlement agreement gives separated families until December 2025 to file for asylum. Van Hofwegen said that very few of them have completed those applications due to the limited funding the government provided for legal help, even before Acacia’s contract was ended.
Van Hofwegen said the current climate of aggressive immigration enforcement puts separated families at heightened risk. Three class members have recently been detained by immigration officials, according to the ACLU, which said it was investigating those situations.
“We remain really worried about class members until folks have full legal services,” Van Hofwegen said.
The California Newsroom is a collaboration of public media outlets throughout the state, with NPR as its national partner.
