ACLU fights Trump in court to preserve legal aid for border-separated families

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion in federal court to stop the Department of Justice from cutting off legal services for families who were forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border during the first Trump administration.

A settlement agreement reached during the Biden administration requires the government to provide legal services to those families in order to help them navigate the complex U.S. immigration system. According to the ACLU’s motion, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the DOJ has declined to renew a contract for the services without specifying what will replace it.

Under the “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy of Trump’s first term, federal agencies detained families entering the country illegally, took children away from their parents, sent them to separate facilities and eventually released them to other family members or to foster care. Nearly 5,000 family members were separated. In many cases, the government did not take steps to reunite them and lost track of which children belonged to which parents.

In 2018, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government for violating families’ right to due process under the U.S. Constitution, and for separating them without cause. The Biden administration settled the lawsuit in December 2023 by agreeing to reunite families who were still separated and provide them with a pathway to asylum in the United States, including a temporary status called parole. 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.”

Because the special conditions granted to these families created a complex web of applications to fill out and documents to produce, the agreement also required the government to ensure access to lawyers who could guide them. The ACLU said those services are now at risk.

“Babies were horrifically ripped from their parents’ arms under the first Trump administration’s family separation policy,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the family separation lawsuit. “Depriving these families of vital services needed to remedy these tragic events is just the latest cruelty inflicted upon the families.”

The government claims it is only declining to renew the existing contract, according to the ACLU’s filing, and does not intend to allow legal services to lapse.

However, with less than a week before the contract expires, the ACLU said the government has yet to explain how it will do that. “Absent the contract,” the filing reads, “the legal services subcontractors have no choice but to stop services altogether.”

The DOJ did not respond to requests for comment.

The program, formally called Legal Access Services for Reunified Families, was created in May 2024 through a contract between the DOJ and Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit immigrant legal defense organization based in Washington, D.C. Acacia distributed the funding to nine organizations around the country that have been providing legal services directly to families impacted by Zero Tolerance. Services include workshops on how to navigate immigration court proceedings, assistance with immigration applications and referrals to pro bono attorneys.

A girl protests family separations in 2018 outside the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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However, Acacia notes that the funding level of the existing contract only covered 12% of the thousands who qualify for legal guidance under the settlement agreement.

Acacia expected the contract to be renewed at the end of this month, and subcontractors had been slating waitlisted families for support starting May 1, according to declarations filed with the ACLU motion.

“A lot of them have parole that are ending now in May and June. So they are really desperate to receive services, and they kept calling us, and we would tell them we have you on the list,” said Marien Velez-Alcaide, a managing attorney for the family reunification program at Al Otro Lado, one of the organizations that has received funding through Acacia.

The nonprofit operates on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, Los Angeles and Tijuana, and said it has served 140 people impacted by Zero Tolerance family separations, including 97 in California.

The DOJ informed Acacia of the non-renewal on April 11, less than a month before the contract was set to end.

A copy of a notice-of-termination letter sent by the U.S. Department of Justice to Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit immigrant legal defense organization that has been providing legal services to members of separated families in accordance with a 2023 settlement between the Biden Administration and the ACLU.

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While the settlement agreement does not require the government to provide full legal representation to family members who were separated under Zero Tolerance, advocates say the support is vital.

Family members who have been separated don’t know what their rights are under the settlement, said Velez-Alcaide: “So it’s really fundamental for them to be able to receive assistance and know what they qualify for, what are the deadlines, how to fill out the applications.”

In a declaration filed with the ACLU motion, Velez-Alcaide wrote that she has heard from clients who are “terrified of the potential consequences for themselves and their families,” including being separated again if their immigration claims fail, or losing their jobs if they’re unable to obtain or renew work permits.

“This is family separation by another name,” said Zain Lakhani, director of migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, at a virtual press conference convened by Acacia on Thursday.

The apparent threat to legal services for separated families comes as the Trump administration continues to dismantle other supports for people seeking asylum in the United States, including a program providing legal representation for unaccompanied children. Many children were designated unaccompanied after they were separated from their families and have been represented by attorneys under that program.

President Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House.

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Some legal services providers have begun laying off staff in the wake of federal funding cuts across the immigration field.

“The risks for class members are skyrocketing, and the elimination of services means the further erosion of due process,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, managing director of legal access programs at the Acacia Center for Justice, during Thursday’s event. “These families who’ve endured so much trauma at the hand of our government have been told that the United States is not keeping our promise to help them rebuild their lives or assist them with their cases.”

Velez-Alcaide said Al Otro Lado has ramped up fundraising efforts to avoid having to leave separated families in the lurch after May 1, especially because the ACLU’s court challenge may move slowly.

“We don’t know how long it’s going to take, and a lot of these families don’t have the time to wait,” she said. “In the meantime, they’re living in fear.”

The California Newsroom is a KQED-led collaboration of public media outlets throughout the state, with NPR as its national partner.