EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 A longtime El Paso legal aid program for unaccompanied children shut down on Friday, with 13 employees laid off, according to Estrella del Paso, a nonprofit legal service for thousands of immigrants.<\/p>\n
Estrella del Paso, a ministry of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, has provided legal services for thousands of migrants since the center was founded in 1986 and in 2007 began providing legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children.<\/p>\n
According to the nonprofit, it closed its Unaccompanied Children’s Program, which provided legal representation for children who arrived in the U.S. without a parent or guardian, after a federal contract funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide the services expired Friday night and no extended contract was made. <\/p>\n
Estrella del Paso said the program had been funded by Congress for nearly two decades and currently represents 243 unaccompanied migrant children.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the course of 20 years, this network of legal service providers has developed a unique level of expertise working with children who have experienced trauma,\u201d said Melissa Lopez, Estrella del Paso Executive Director. \u201cWe have spent 20 years building this institutional knowledge that we are going to lose on Friday. There is no replacing the organizations providing these services. We know what happens to children that go to court without an attorney. In one word, it is deportation. The government is trying to eliminate our work and this program because they know that without attorneys, children will be deported.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the closure, Lopez said Estrella del Paso will continue to represent unaccompanied migrant children.<\/p>\n
“Our attorneys have an ethical and legal obligation to continue representing the children, despite the government withholding payment for these services,” Lopez said. <\/p>\n
However, the El Paso organization is not the only one to lose funding, as the July 31 deadline applied to other federal contracts across the country, potentially leaving more than 20,000 children to navigate the immigration court system without an attorney. <\/p>\n
In March 2025, HHS announced that it was terminating nearly all legal work non-profits provide to unaccompanied migrant children as the Trump administration continues to seek to end protections for immigrant children, including federal legal aid for minors facing deportation.<\/p>\n
The closure comes as Estrella del Paso said the Trump administration currently owes the organization nearly $1 million for services that have already been provided.<\/p>\n
As KFOX14\/CBS4 previously reported, the nonprofit said the federal government currently owes the organization more than $765,000 for services already provided, with a lack of reimbursements dating back to December 2025.<\/p>\n
“That number will increase after invoices are submitted for work completed during the month of July. Without payment from the federal government, Estrella del Paso does not have the financial capacity to continue operating the Unaccompanied Children\u2019s Program,” Lopez said. <\/p>\n
Previously speaking to KFOX14\/CBS4 earlier this month, Lopez warned the lack of reimbursements could lead to serious consequences for children, many who are survivors of trafficking, violence and persecution.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it probably means deportation, because the fact-of-the-matter is that the services we provide are so critical to the people that we serve, they often don’t have the monetary means to be able to hire an attorney and so without our services, I think we’re going to see the number of deportation cases go up, the number people who get deported go up because they won’t have access,” Lopez said.<\/p>\n
She added, “We’re talking about the difference between a child being deported and not being deported. We’re talking about the difference between somebody getting perhaps their citizenship and not getting their citizenship. The number of people that we serve annually in 2025 was just over 40,000 people. And so the need is tremendous. And year after year, we serve tens of thousands of people,” Lopez said.<\/p>\n
The lack of reimbursements comes after Estrella del Paso and 10 other plaintiffs sued the Trump administration in 2025 to block the administration’s plans to defund legal services for unaccompanied immigrant children. In April 2025, a preliminary injunction by a California federal judge, Araceli Martinez-Olgu\u00edn, ruled that legal services for unaccompanied children are required under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. The law requires the government to ensure unaccompanied immigrant minors receive counsel in immigration court.<\/p>\n
Since then, the Trump administration has argued in court that government payments for legal services are not mandatory.<\/p>\n
“This issue is not about paperwork or even non-payment of the bills this administration owes. It\u2019s about more than 20,000 vulnerable immigrant children who deserve to have someone in their corner and the federal government\u2019s choice to leave them to face the immigration system alone,” Lopez said. <\/p>\n
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