{"id":310931,"date":"2026-07-31T18:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310931\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T18:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:02:08","slug":"inside-the-nyc-courtroom-where-detained-children-face-deportation-without-attorneys-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310931\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the NYC courtroom where detained children face deportation without attorneys"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published<\/a> on July 31 by The City Reporter. Sign up here<\/a> to get the latest stories from The City Reporter delivered to you each morning.<\/p>\n

Throughout the summer, inside a small, fluorescent-lit courtroom in Lower Manhattan<\/a>, hundreds of migrant children, some as young as 3, faced deportation hearings. Most appeared virtually. Some sat around desks in a classroom, while others bounced on bunk beds or rocked in chairs inside small offices or storage closets. <\/p>\n

Detained in nearby shelters for unaccompanied minors, the vast majority did not have lawyers as they appeared before the court. <\/p>\n

Internal federal regulations have long barred deportation proceedings from moving ahead when children don\u2019t have legal representation, and federal law requires the government to make every effort to fund those attorneys or facilitate pro bono counsel. But inside the courtroom of Judge Lisa W. Ling, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor appointed to the court by President Trump in 2018, none of those safeguards seemed to matter. <\/p>\n

Over a series of hearings observed by The City Reporter in July, Ling, dressed in a black robe, peppered unrepresented children with questions that could profoundly impact their cases: \u201cWhy did you come to the United States?\u201d \u201cAre you afraid of returning to your country?\u201d \u201cWere you able to go to school?\u201d \u201cWhen you left Guatemala, were you running away or afraid of anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ling began to question Evan, a preteen boy from Guatemala with sideswept dark bangs, a child advocate tried to intervene. (Child advocates are assigned to particularly sensitive cases but aren\u2019t lawyers. The City Reporter has withheld Evan\u2019s full name and those of other children described.)<\/p>\n

\u201cYour honor, if I may, we understand the court\u2019s wish to expedite proceedings,\u201d said Nicole Guerrero of the Young Center for Immigrant Children\u2019s Rights. Evan, she pointed out, \u201cis not represented and does not understand immigration law.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout legal representation, he is denied a full and fair hearing,\u201d Guerrero warned. <\/p>\n

The judge pressed on, despite the admonition.<\/p>\n

Ling oversees what\u2019s known as the \u201cdetained juvenile docket,\u201d where all children held in shelters overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in New York City, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley must appear for their deportation proceedings. Of more than 300 cases involving detained children before her between late June and the end of July, just over a quarter of those had attorneys assigned to them, according to court records. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening in Ling\u2019s courtroom is already playing out across the country \u2014 and is about to kick into overdrive. On Friday, the Trump administration will allow a $356 million-a-year contract for such legal services to expire<\/a>, barring any last-minute agreements. As a result, some 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children facing deportation across the country, including 1,300 in New York, could lose access to federally funded legal services.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s an all-out war on their due process rights,\u201d said Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice<\/a>, the nonprofit that oversees the nationwide contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is responsible for the care of unaccompanied migrant children. From the federal contract, Acacia then subcontracts with dozens of legal service<\/a> providers across the country, nine of which are based in New York. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to see a lot of kids railroaded into taking voluntary departure, aka self-deport, even where their protection needs are acute and where they would be facing real danger to their lives in their countries of origin,\u201d Aber said.<\/p>\n

For decades, across Republican and Democratic administrations, the federal government funded legal service providers, in accordance with a 2008 law<\/a> that required HHS to \u201censure to the greatest extent practicable\u201d that minors had legal representation in deportation proceedings. <\/p>\n

But that funding came under attack last spring when the Trump administration attempted to cancel Acacia\u2019s contract. A federal judge intervened<\/a>, requiring the administration to continue the contract temporarily<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Then late last year<\/a>, HHS started delaying payments and requested new information about the children Acacia represents. Advocates decried the request as a breach of attorney-client privilege, and the millions in stalled payments are the subject of another ongoing lawsuit<\/a>. In legal filings, the government has argued its requests were an effort to better account for how federal funds were being spent. <\/p>\n

The funding cliff comes at a perilous time for unaccompanied migrant children. They\u2019re staying longer<\/a> in federal shelters, as the Trump administration has found ways to slow-walk their release<\/a> from detention, from where it is much more difficult to find legal support. At the same time, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the nation\u2019s immigration courts, has sped up proceedings for unaccompanied children<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That haste was apparent inside Ling\u2019s courtroom. Instead of adjourning cases for several months at a time, which attorneys said had been the norm, she scheduled children to return to court every two or three weeks.<\/p>\n

An analysis of immigration court records by The City Reporter shows a spike in the number of deportation hearings for unaccompanied minors detained in New York this year, with 1,400 to date, already surpassing the total for 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Hearings<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re cutting off access to lawyers for these children, but they need lawyers now more than ever,\u201d said Beth Baltimore, the deputy director of the Legal Services Center at The Door, one of nine New York nonprofits with an expiring federal contract. \u201cIt was never a system that a child could navigate alone, but now it\u2019s so much more complex and so much more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the wholesale cessation of all federal funding for their legal representation, advocates warn that deportations of vulnerable children are all but certain to climb.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling that we\u2019ve been getting in the community that there\u2019s a bit of a like closing in and targeting of children in a way that we didn\u2019t see under the first Trump administration,\u201d Emily Norman, the regional director of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) who oversees its New York City office. <\/p>\n

Asked about the end of the Acacia contract, an unnamed spokesperson for HHS said the agency had asked the group for additional data on the people it represents, which the nonprofits declined to provide. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) works to ensure the safety, well-being, and appropriate care of all children in its custody,\u201d a statement read. \u201cORR remains fully compliant with legal and regulatory obligations and does not act in any way that could dissuade a child from seeking appropriate legal relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The court has given you plenty of time\u2019<\/p>\n

Apart from federally funded legal services, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has its own protections in place for unaccompanied children. Immigration judges are not supposed to \u201caccept an admission of removability<\/a>\u201d from any child without an \u201cattorney or legal representative, a near relative, legal guardian, or friend.\u201d <\/p>\n

That admission would happen at what\u2019s called \u201cpleadings,\u201d an early step towards deportation in which the Justice Department lays out its case against a migrant, and an immigration judge determines whether or not the migrant could be deported. If pleadings can\u2019t go ahead for an unaccompanied child without a lawyer, none of the other steps in the deportation process can happen, including a deportation order, Aber of Acacia Center for Justice explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe regulations are very clear,\u201d said Aber.<\/p>\n

But child advocates and attorneys in New York say that practice changed several months ago, when Ling appeared to stop following the department\u2019s internal guidance, moving ahead on the cases of detained children whether or not they had attorneys.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for EOIR, said the agency does not comment on the decisions of individual judges and called immigration judges independent adjudicators who make their own decision on a case-by-case basis. Advocates, however, say that what\u2019s happening in Ling\u2019s courtroom is taking place in other courtrooms where unaccompanied children appear. <\/p>\n

Aber said judges across the country started moving ahead in cases involving children with no lawyers this spring, as EOIR also started scheduling unaccompanied children on \u201cmega master<\/a>\u201d dockets and decreasing the time kids had in between hearings. <\/p>\n

Mattingly declined to comment on any policy shift related to unrepresented children more broadly. <\/p>\n

During a recent hearing, an attorney with Catholic Charities named Tonya Putnam, acting as \u201cfriend of the court,\u201d someone who assists proceedings but does not legally represent any client, repeatedly interjected, telling Judge Ling she was out of step with current EOIR regulations. <\/p>\n

\u201cPer regulations, the court should not take pleadings from an unrepresented child,\u201d interjected Putnam, urging Ling to pause proceedings in the case of a Guatemalan teen named Ambrosio, who appeared virtually from a room lined with butterfly wallpaper and book shelves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court properly took pleadings,\u201d Ling replied, giving Ambrosio, who was in a shelter and doesn\u2019t have a lawyer, three weeks to fill out an asylum application in English. <\/p>\n

The same exchange repeated in the case of Nilmar, a boy with shaggy bangs wearing a beaded necklace, who looked around the age of 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cPer regulations, an unrepresented child should not have pleadings taken without counsel,\u201d Putnam repeated. <\/p>\n

Ling continued the proceeding anyway, asking Nilmar if he was afraid of returning to Guatemala, to which he responded \u201cNo.\u201d Ling repeated the question several times, with Nilmar responding negatively each time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you come to the United States?\u201d Ling then asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a better life,\u201d the child responded, through a translator.<\/p>\n

Nilmar\u2019s admission to the court during pleadings meant one of the only outlets of relief available to him while detained, applying for asylum, would no longer be an option.<\/p>\n

Putnam tried to interject, \u201cYour honor, as a friend of the court, I\u2019m not sure the child understands the implication of what he\u2019s saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ling asked Nilmar if he understood what she was saying, to which he replied he had, and again asked if he would feel unsafe returning to Guatemala, to which he replied again that he wasn\u2019t afraid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if you can give me some extra time to fill out what I was given, the asylum,\u201d Nilmar asked through the translator. <\/p>\n

Ling said it didn\u2019t appear he was eligible for asylum, and began to explain that she would grant him voluntary departure and he would have to leave the country by Nov. 19 or have to pay a fine of up to $5,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cCan you give me more time to find a lawyer?\u201d he wondered.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately I can\u2019t do this any further. This is the eighth time that we\u2019ve adjourned your case,\u201d Ling said. \u201cThe court has given you plenty of time to find a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nilmar ran his fingers through his hair and fidgeted in his seat, then asked Ling what would happen in his case and if he would be released to his sponsor, an uncle. She replied the court had nothing to do with his potential release to an uncle. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis court is granting you voluntary departure,\u201d Ling replied. \u201cI wish you all the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Cassin, a former immigration judge who oversaw a non-detained juvenile docket at immigration court at 290 Broadway before she was fired last fall<\/a>, said piecing together whether a child has a potential asylum claim can take time, as children may be the victims of trafficking or abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so wrong just to ask a kid generically, are you afraid of going back,\u201d Cassin, who now serves as legal director for Immigrant Children Advocates Relief Effort<\/a>, said. \u201cMaybe they don\u2019t understand what that really means. Maybe they don\u2019t want to admit it in that context. Maybe they were abused by their own parents, and they don\u2019t want to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Children with attorneys aren\u2019t typically asked in immigration court if they\u2019re afraid to return to their countries, because their lawyer would have already screened them to determine what type of immigration relief they might be eligible for including asylum, advocates said.<\/p>\n

\u2018So why wasn\u2019t it done?\u2019<\/p>\n

For the unrepresented children who told Judge Ling they were afraid to return to their countries, Ling set tight timelines of two or three weeks for them to fill out asylum applications in English, a difficult task for an adult in their native tongue, let alone a child who doesn\u2019t speak the language. <\/p>\n

On a recent morning, a 17-year-old from Guatemala named Xavi sat with his head resting on his hands as he listened to his deportation proceedings through a Spanish translator. He\u2019d spent months trying to reunite with his brother in New York after crossing the border and being held in a youth shelter in The Bronx. <\/p>\n

While there are fewer children in ORR shelters, down to just 1,700 nationwide, the time they\u2019re spending in them has gone up dramatically to 194 days on average in June, up from just a 30 day average last fiscal year, according to government data.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ling gave the boy three weeks to fill out an application for asylum in English, though Xavi had no lawyer. <\/p>\n

Sarah Caspari, a child advocate assigned to the case, begged Judge Ling for more time given the lack of attorney and the fact that, \u201cXavi does not speak, read or write in English.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case will be proceeding,\u201d Ling replied.<\/p>\n

In other cases, Ling scolded children who hadn\u2019t finished their asylum applications on the deadline she\u2019d given them, as she did with Abimal, also from Guatemala. <\/p>\n

\u201cI told you at the last hearing with or without a lawyer you had to submit the application,\u201d Ling stated. \u201cSo why wasn\u2019t it done?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t done it yet, I wanted to have a lawyer,\u201d Abimal replied through a Spanish interpreter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith or without a lawyer you have to file it,\u201d Ling warned. \u201cI\u2019m going to give you one more week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haidee Chu contributed additional reporting.<\/p>\n

Gwynne Hogan is a senior reporter at The City Reporter covering immigration, homelessness, and many things in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on July 31 by The City Reporter. Sign up here to get the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4146,4207,117597,2301,3032,3411,9,24,55,54,56,63,117598],"class_list":["post-310931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chalkbeat","tag-children","tag-city-reporter","tag-immigration","tag-migrant","tag-migrants","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-republication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}