12/25/18 Because immigration law is civil, not criminal, children are not entitled to legal counsel when they go through their asylum interviews or immigration-court proceedings. The Obama administration had allocated $4.5 million annually for the legal representation of migrant children through the Justice AmeriCorps program, but in 2017, the Department of Justice under the Trump administration declined to renew the contracts with immigrant-legal-services nonprofits. Now, fewer and fewer children are getting the legal representation they need.
