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Posters within courts providing immigration have been replaced by those that withdraw legal aid and encourage “self-abolition.”
The help desk for children, once standing in one of the many corridors of the West Los Angeles Immigration Court, is no longer run.
And the waiting room was empty, and the children’s families (most of whom spoke English or were not in court) gathered for a rudimentary lesson on the legal system before their first appearance before the judge.
“There’s no help anywhere,” said Mullers Morales, a 28-year-old Salvadora faction who appeared at West Los Angeles Immigration Court in South Bay on Tuesday.
The Trump administration has terminated a $28 million contract with a nonprofit that has provided legal assistance to thousands of immigrants in California and beyond, just as it injected $150 billion into immigration and border enforcement.
Counsels paid to provide basic legal information have disappeared from the courts that have become new tools for repression of immigrants in the administration. Immigrants fear that going to court would mean deportation.
Over the past two months, bipartisan-backed programs such as immigration help desks and legal orientation programs for people in detention have been cut out completely or taken over by the government.
Morales, who has applied for asylum after fleeing violent gangs in El Salvador, said the court system has been shattered and pro bono lawyers have not taken the case. Finding basic information was tough, he said.
“It doesn’t feel like an accident to me that the government has started to kick out legal service providers who provide basic information and assistance in court, arrest people and deport people in court,” said Sarah van Hofwegen, the lawyer who oversees these programs for these programs, and the lawyer who provides national umbrellas and service for other non-sellers.
This month, the group providing legal services to immigrants was hit another way when Washington US District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the Trump administration had halted contracts with them and that those services could be brought in within the company. The decision has been appealed, but advocacy groups say decades of work have been dismantled as the administration tries to cut off more paths for legal immigration.
“It means people are picked up, detained and deported in a way that doesn’t have any legitimate processes of any kind or in fact helps them access their rights to basic legal information and understand their situation and defend themselves,” said van Hofwegen.
The Justice Department and the Immigration Review Office have declined to interview, but the Immigrant Hawks say those facing deportation have a right to lawyers, but taxpayers don’t have to pay it.
“U.S. taxpayers who are already tense under unreasonable burdens should not be expected to cover the large costs of legal aid programs that rarely take place outside of unreasonable and unnecessary long-term removal procedures.”
“In breaking down these programs, Eoir did nothing but eliminated spending, which was highly questionable and legal in the first place.
The government no longer provides orientation for court help desks, child representatives, and children’s families in deportation proceedings.
The government said it would take over an orientation program for managers of detained people and minors. Immigration advocates say the proposed program is so watered down that it is as if they were “functionally fired.”
Van Hofwegen said there is no indication of the promised new government programme, but that detention facilities are full and conditions are getting worse in isolated areas of the state where immigration lawyers are scarce.
She said that even if orientation programs for people caring for immigrant children are active, people are increasingly scared or unable to speak to immigration officers, as new services likely require.
The program provided a small respite for a complex legal system that supported those who could hire lawyers. Low-income immigrants often can’t afford lawyers and don’t know many times whether they have strong legal cases or if they might be better off giving up.
According to a 2024 Congressional report, immigrants seeking asylum without lawyers won by 19% without lawyers, while those with lawyers won by 60%.
Evelyn Sedeo Naik, an attorney for the Esperanza Immigration Rights Project, who ran the legal help desk in Los Angeles and Orange County Immigration Courts, said calls were being poured into the office.
“The contract is over, but the needs are still there,” she said. “People are so scary. We see it every day.”
One of her clients, the 4-year-old mother, was in the middle of her asylum application when she was suddenly arrested and separated from her child.
“Thankfully, there’s another person who can at least take care of her child,” Sedeño Naik said. “But they are separated.”
The woman currently has a lawyer.
Immigration court rules change every day. The administration has cut off a legal path for thousands of migrants to remain in the United States, ending the temporary protected status of some migrants from Afghanistan and Cameroon, and pushing it to end for other countries such as Haiti. Government lawyers are asking judges to dismiss the case in order to quickly track it down. Cases of asylum that may have been heard before are abandoned without hearing. And families who have been arrested who have been actively involved in cases and regularly checking in with US immigrants and customs enforcement officers.
Cedeño-Naik said everyone, including lawyers, is worried about why the legal system is being used in this way. And now, basic legal services often meant helping people, the most stressful and consequential moments of their lives.
The group continues to provide legal assistance online, with the hopes of reaching as many people as possible, and there is also a walk-in service. And she said that now it’s practical for agents to arrest people regularly in court.
“We’re trying to offer individuals these options,” she said. “I know that getting information is extremely important.”
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