{"id":398548,"date":"2026-08-05T18:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398548\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T18:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:31:16","slug":"150m-contract-for-child-immigrant-legal-services-going-to-houston-law-firm-with-ties-to-trump-administration-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398548\/","title":{"rendered":"$150M contract for child immigrant legal services going to Houston law firm with ties to Trump administration \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/articles\/news\/politics\/immigration\/2018\/12\/19\/315960\/several-thousand-migrant-children-in-u-s-custody-could-be-released-before-christmas\/attachment\/migrant-children-run-around-a-track-outside-at-the-homestead-temporary-shelter-for-unaccompanied-children-in-homestead-fla-shelters-that-house-these-children-are-reaching-capacity-and-the-federal-go\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-315961\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ap_18173548022393_wide-672fb58eb878c0652f9f2644051cd7bc23a7c5a9-1000x562.jpg\" alt=\"Migrant children run around a track outside at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Fla. Shelters that house these children are reaching capacity and the federal government is now working to speed releases to sponsors.\" width=\"1000\" height=\"562\"   data-eio=\"p\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Brynn Anderson\/AP<\/p>\n<p>Migrant children run around a track outside at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Fla.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration is planning to hire a Houston-based law firm with ties to the administration to provide legal services to unaccompanied children, according to a notice scheduled to be posted on the Federal Register this week.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement will award a contract of $150 million to Burke Law Group, with a proposed time period covering one year starting Aug. 15.<\/p>\n<p>One of the founders, Marcella Burkey, was a former Trump appointee to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. Jeffrey Hall, a former employee and founding partner, was recently appointed and confirmed to serve in the EPA late last year.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes days after the federal government allowed a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/migrant-children-deport-unaccompanied-26aee30582c81f7399e919f7f298439d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">contract to expire on Friday<\/a> with a network of nearly 100 legal groups after not paying for their services for more than half a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brynn Anderson\/AP Migrant children run around a track outside at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[139886,56,58,59789,57,1724,66,4491,223,287,27,17914,139887,42904],"class_list":["post-398548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-burke-law-group","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-law-firms","tag-houston-news","tag-immigration","tag-local","tag-national","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-trump-immigration-policy","tag-unaccompanied-children","tag-unaccompanied-minors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}