AUSTIN, Texas — The federal government plans to award $150 million to a small Texas law firm with ties to the Trump administration to represent unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody without a guardian during immigration proceedings, according to a notice set to post to the Federal Register on Thursday.
The government has been required by law for decades to protect migrant children who are in the country illegally without guardians, over fears they could be exploited, abused or trafficked. Some of the children are so young they haven't learned to talk and without adequate representation it is almost guaranteed that kids will be deported.
The firm, Houston-based Burke Law Group, specializes in advising "companies on complex environmental, regulatory, and enforcement matters," its website states. Out of 24 attorneys, only two specialize in immigration and asylum cases.
"Instead of taking care of these children, the government is instead implementing things such as awarding a contract to a private small law firm in Texas with no discernible experience in relevant immigration law or child welfare," said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, the deputy director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, a nonprofit that provided legal services to unaccompanied minors.
Burke Law Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment via phone and email. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is the agency awarding the contract, did not respond either.
The proposed award comes after a contract with a group of nearly 100 legal nonprofits to do similar work expired on Friday.
The Trump administration had stopped paying those legal nonprofits back in November, when lawyers refused to turn over confidential information about the children.
Michael Lukens, the executive director of Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told reporters Wednesday that information was covered by attorney-client privilege.
"HHS's insistence on this data — I truly believe that whoever signs contracts with HHS is going to agree in their contract to turn over this data," he said.
The lawyers say the federal government owes them $65 million and there is an ongoing lawsuit over this issue..
Ties to the Trump administration
A co-founder of Burke Law Group, Marcella Burke, served in the first Trump administration in both the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. And a founding partner, Jeffrey Hall, currently serves as an assistant administrator at the EPA.
During Hall's confirmation hearing, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, expressed concern about the nomination of the lawyer to the post.
"Mr. Hall's work on 'environmental' matters at Burke Law Group focused on tearing down statutory protections meant to guarantee clean air and clean water, seeking to limit EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act, and gutting greenhouse gas regulations that protect against poisonous emissions," Whitehouse wrote in his opening statement.
The EPA did not respond to a request seeking comment from Hall.
Immigrant-rights advocates are questioning DHS' proposal to award Burke Law Group the contract. The contract only covers about 1,800 children in shelters, a nonprofit that represented the minors told reporters Wednesday.
It's unclear what will happen to the nearly 22,000 children who are not in HHS shelters.
Lukens said "technically nobody in the country has a contract with HHS to provide services to kids."
The proposed contract with Burke Law Group is supposed to go into effect on Aug. 15, leaving a two week gap.
Lukens said his organization and other nonprofits have continued to provide legal services "because that is our mission and our ethical obligation."
He and other organizations told reporters they will continue to do so for free for now, or until they lose all the few resources they have left.
Acacia Center for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit contracted to provide the services until July 31, said in a statement Wednesday it is "adamant that whichever organization takes over this contract, it must have the deep experience required to navigate our country's complex immigration system and the training to work with vulnerable children, many of whom fled violence, trafficking, and abuse to come to this country."
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