Trump funding halt leaves immigrant children in Wisconsin without planned lawyers
And the kids are supposed to handle this alone.
A federal funding halt has left a Wisconsin legal clinic without money it planned to use to provide lawyers for detained immigrant children, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. The University of Wisconsin Law School’s Immigrant Justice Clinic had planned to hire a staff attorney and paralegal to represent unaccompanied children under 12 facing deportation proceedings.
The funding was part of $810 million in federally approved money that the Trump administration moved to halt, including $567 million from a Health and Human Services account for refugee and entrant assistance. The White House said the account supports programs serving refugees, asylees, and other eligible noncitizens.
The clinic had reportedly spent about two years preparing to expand its legal services for children. Now, the planned hires are in jeopardy as the clinic looks for other sources of funding.
The lawyers were planned but now the funding is gone
The children the clinic hoped to represent are unaccompanied minors who arrived in the U.S. without a parent and are now in ICE custody awaiting potential deportation. That detention comes as the Trump administration’s broader mandatory detention policy faces a Supreme Court challenge, with the justices set to consider whether immigrants can be held throughout removal proceedings without bond hearings.
That means children can be left to navigate an immigration court system without legal representation. The clinic’s director, Erin Barbato, said that expecting very young children to handle those proceedings on their own is especially concerning.
The funding loss comes as Wisconsin already faces a shortage of immigration attorneys. The state has 28,148 pending immigration court cases, with only about 40% involving someone with legal representation, according to TRAC data cited by WPR.
Wisconsin was already short on immigration lawyers
Grant Sovern, director of the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, said his organization can represent only about one-third of people across Wisconsin who need a lawyer but cannot obtain one. He also estimated that only about 20 immigration lawyers in the state practice this type of law.
The shortage comes as the national immigration court backlog continues to grow. TRAC estimates that about 3.1 million cases were pending nationwide, while more than 514,000 new cases were logged during fiscal year 2026.
For the children affected by the Wisconsin funding loss, the consequences are more immediate. The clinic is now trying to find alternative funding, while children who were expected to receive representation could instead enter immigration court without a lawyer. The administration is also facing a separate legal fight over its ability to deport migrants to countries other than their own, a policy the Supreme Court has temporarily allowed to continue while the case proceeds.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow The Mary Sue:
