A Pittsburgh nonprofit that represents unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, claiming recent “unlawful” policy changes have eroded legal protections for children who have been trafficked, abandoned and neglected, leading to increased deportations.

The lawsuit by Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh was filed Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia, where the state’s immigration cases are handled on behalf of children it represents.

Listed as petitioners are six teens — five in Allegheny County from Vietnam, Guinea, El Salvador and Guatemala — and an 18-year-old from Guatemala living in Philadelphia.

All of them, the lawsuit said, are “victims of abuse, abandonment, neglect or child trafficking” who have already been recognized by the United States government — or were about to be.

Without court action, the lawsuit said, the teens will be deported without a chance to be heard.

“Even children with violent trafficking claims are being ordered removed,” said Dana Gold, the Jewish group’s chief operating officer. “We cannot, as human beings, stand by and watch that happen.”

Gold said she believes her group’s suit is the first of its kind in the country challenging the Trump administration’s deportation policies for unaccompanied minors.

In recent months, according to the lawsuit, the Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to deport these children.

Immigration courts have issued “more than 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders against minors every month, nearly four times the prior rate, and unaccompanied children are being detained and removed at approximately three times the prior rate,” according to statistics cited in the lawsuit.

Funding cut

The due process lawsuit was filed the same day that two members of the Pittsburgh area’s congressional delegation — Rep. Chris DeLuzio, D-Fox Chapel, and Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale — sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

In it, they questioned the administration’s decision to end the national contract that funds legal services for unaccompanied children by groups such as Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh.

The contract between the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Washington, D.C.-based Acacia Center for Justice expired on Friday, leaving as many as 20,000 children across the country in limbo, the legislators said.

Acacia estimated Friday that roughly 700 children in Pennsylvania could be affected.

According to Acacia, the administration is attempting to leverage the group to turn over confidential, attorney-client privileged information about the children they represent.

They and their network of providers, including Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh, have not been paid since November.

Acacia said they collectively are owed $65 million in fees for work already performed.

“The government is withholding payment for work that has already been performed in order to extract confidential information about kids, information the government has no right to,” Acacia said in a news release.

The Department of Health and Human Services said in a written statement that the Office of Refugee Resettlement works to ensure the safety and well-being of all children in its custody, according to The Guardian.

“ORR remains fully compliant with its legal and regulatory obligations and does not act in any way that could dissuade a child from seeking appropriate legal relief,” the statement said. “ORR offered Acacia the opportunity to receive a second bridge contract that included requirements to provide data on whom they represent and to bill the government when they submit applications for immigration relief.

“Acacia declined that offer.”

Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh, Gold said, is owed more than $500,000. They have five attorneys providing representation to unaccompanied minors throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

In their letter, the legislators said the unaccompanied children in federal custody are entitled to legal representation.

“Equally troubling, if the agency does not take action to continue these services, new children that enter (Office of Refugee Resettlement) custody will be stripped of access to critical legal information and a trusted adult to help them understand their rights starting on Aug. 1, 2026,” they wrote. “Children, many of which have fled violence and exploitation, should not be forced to appear in court alone without representation.”

Trust in jeopardy

Over the last five years, Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh has screened nearly 3,000 cases and represented 983 unaccompanied minors from more than 30 countries — many of them involving complex trauma, violence, persecution, abuse, neglect and abandonment, according to a declaration by Sarah Hough, the director of the group’s immigration department, that was attached to the complaint.

The lawsuit accuses the federal government of enacting new policies in pending immigration proceedings that target the petitioners for accelerated removal.

Those policies, the lawsuit said, have targeted the unaccompanied children without giving them access to traditional legal avenues for relief.

“Absent a court’s intervention, these children, and other children like them, will be summarily removed from the United States without process back to the abuse, the abandonment, the neglect, or the trafficking each of them fled,” the complaint said.

The only available remedies to their clients, the lawsuit said, are for unaccompanied minors to be removed, to voluntarily self-deport or seek short continuances while awaiting a decision on asylum.

Because of the policy changes, the document said, there is no individualized determination to establish good cause for a continuance, and they will be removed before their applications are even processed.

And while the attorneys can still file for dependency or custody in family court, it is likely the children will be ordered removed before the conclusion of any such proceedings, the lawsuit said.

Additionally, because the work has increased by requiring the children to have hearings every two to three weeks under the new policies, the attorneys for Jewish Family and Community Services have had to turn away children they would otherwise represent, Hough said.

“These rulings also jeopardize the trust and rapport that JFCS’ attorneys build with the children during the course of representation,” Hough said. “These children have revisited their traumas and shared their life history because they trusted the attorneys who are no longer able to help them.”

The complaint, which includes claims for violations of the Administrative Procedure Act; unlawful reliance on unpublished agency directives; violation of binding agency regulations; and violation of due process, asks the court to enforce the protections that already exist through Congress — ensuring that children eligible for relief can meaningfully pursue it prior to removal — as well as the reversal of the recent policies.

“This case is about the most vulnerable in our immigration system: abused, abandoned, neglected, and trafficked children,” the lawsuit said. “One would assume it would be a priority of our immigration system to protect, at least, these children.

“However, protecting vulnerable and trafficked children conflicts with an agenda of ‘deport at all costs.’”