A California federal judge on Thursday gave Estrella del Paso and other nonprofits that provide legal representation to unaccompanied migrant children seven days to work out with the federal government a way to receive the hundreds of thousands of dollars they say they’re owed.
The hearing comes as the organization, a ministry of the El Paso Catholic Diocese, says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has withheld more than $765,000 in reimbursements they’re owed for representing children in the immigration legal system.
On the surface, it doesn’t appear that the Trump administration is in compliance with a 2025 preliminary injunction ordering it to continue funding the legal representation for unaccompanied migrant children it sought to end, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguín said during the hearing conducted virtually. However, she told the plaintiffs’ attorneys that their claims need to be more “fully formed” on paper for her to move forward with their request to hold HHS in contempt of court for allegedly violating the injunction.
The goal, she said, is to have a status quo that makes it “abundantly clear that the government is complying,” telling the plaintiffs, “you’ve got my eye.”
The April 2025 preliminary injunction stated that funding cuts by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which under HHS provides care for unaccompanied migrant children, violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The legislation provides physical and legal protections for unaccompanied minors.
Estrella del Paso, formerly known as Diocesan Migrant Refugee Services, joined the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center and the Justice Action Center in their July 1 lawsuit asking the court to order the government to show cause why it should not be held in civil contempt.
Without the funding, “the government’s deportation machine will be put on overdrive,” Estrella del Paso Executive Director Melissa Lopez said during a news conference ahead of the hearing.
“The children we serve tend to be teenagers, but we have represented children as young as 8 months old – yes, 8 months old,” Lopez said. She told of a recent case of a 7-year-old boy who hugged a stuffed animal after requesting voluntary departure from an immigration judge.
“I don’t know very many attorneys who carry stuffed animals with them alongside their case files, but our attorneys do,” Lopez said.
Estrella del Paso, which was formed about 40 years ago and now serves about 40,000 people a year on a variety of immigration cases, has had to stop accepting new minor clients and has been operating on its cash reserves, Lopez said.
The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Trump administration in court has argued that federal government payments for legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children are not mandatory.
In a July 10 response on why the federal government should not be held in contempt, the administration argued it has acted in good faith and not violated the injunction because it still intends to release funds if it can verify that the costs comply with federal contracting rules, court records show.
In the news conference, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said ORR is “failing in terms of protecting vulnerable kids and is instead acting like an enforcement agency.”
The Trump administration, he said, is now demanding that ORR turn over sensitive client information from the legal organizations that can then be turned over to immigration agencies – a key point of contention from the nonprofits who say that compromises their young clients’ privacy and safety.
PODCAST: Inside El Paso’s fast-tracked immigration court, where migrant children often lack attorney
Chiqui Sanchez Kennedy, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Immigration Representation Project, said organizations such as hers are on the brink of exhaustion and it’s the children who will be most impacted.
“Kids are traumatized and getting desperate every day,” Kennedy said, adding that some are resorting to self-harm to deal with their fear and anxiety.
Kennedy called Texas the “epicenter” of arrests by ICE, which is also targeting and arresting children and placing them in ORR shelters. ICE, she added, is also arresting parents and sponsors during the reunification process with the children – leaving the children in ORR shelters for prolonged and indefinite lengths of time.
Nearly 1,800 children were in ORR care in June, the agency reports online, with the average length of care being about 194 days.
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