Posters inside courts offering immigrants legal assistance have been taken down, replaced by ones that encourage them to “self-deport.”
The help desk for children that once stood in one of the many hallways of the West Los Angeles Immigration Court no longer operates.
And the waiting room is empty where families of children — most who don’t speak English or who had never been in a courtroom — gathered for a rudimentary lesson on the legal system before their first appearance before a judge.
“There is no help anywhere,” said Moises Morales, a 28-year-old Salvadoran who was appearing Tuesday in the West Los Angeles Immigration Court in the South Bay.
The Trump administration ended a $28-million contract with nonprofits that provided an array of legal assistance to thousands of immigrants in California and beyond — just as it infused $150 billion toward immigration and border enforcement.
Lawyers who were paid to provide basic legal information are disappearing from courthouses that have become new tools for the administration’s immigration crackdown. Immigrants are terrified that going to court will mean deportation.
Over the last two months, once bipartisan-supported programs such as immigration help desks or legal orientation programs for those in detention have either been chopped altogether or taken over by the government.
Morales, who is applying for asylum after fleeing violent gangs in El Salvador, said the court system can be confusing and that pro bono attorneys aren’t taking cases. Finding basic information has been tough, he said.
“It doesn’t feel like an accident to me that the government kicked out the legal service providers who are providing basic information and support to people in court, and then started arresting and deporting people in court,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, a lawyer who oversees these programs for Acacia Center for Justice, a national umbrella for other nonprofits and lawyers who provide the service.
This month, groups that provide legal services for immigrants were struck another blow, when U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington ruled that the Trump administration can discontinue contracts with them and bring those services in-house. The decision is being appealed, but advocacy groups say decades of work is being dismantled as the administration seeks to cut off more avenues to legal immigration.
“It means that people are getting picked up and detained and deported without any sort of due process or really any way to access basic legal information rights to help them understand their situation and help them advocate for themselves,” Van Hofwegen said.
The Department of Justice and the Executive Office for Immigration Review declined an interview, but immigration hawks say those facing deportation have a right to a lawyer, but taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.
“U.S. taxpayers, who are already straining under unreasonable burdens, should not be expected to cover the massive costs for legal aid programs that do little other than unreasonably and unnecessarily prolong removal proceedings,” said Matthew O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
“In decomissioning these programs, EOIR has done nothing other than eliminate expenditures that were of highly dubious legality in the first place.
No longer provided by the government are the court help desk, some representation for children and an orientation for families of children in deportation proceedings.
The government said it will take over an orientation program for those detained and one for custodians of minors. Immigration advocates say that the programs proposed are so watered down that it is as if they’ve been “functionally terminated.”
Van Hofwegen said she has seen no sign of the promised new government programs but detention facilities — in isolated parts of the state with few immigration attorneys — are filling up in and conditions are deteriorating.
She noted that even if the orientation program for people caring for immigrant children was active, people are increasingly too afraid to come to immigration court or talk to immigration officials, as the new services probably will require.
The programs had offered a small reprieve in a complex legal system that favors those who can hire a lawyer. Low-income immigrants often can’t afford an attorney and many times don’t know whether they have a strong legal case or might be better off giving up.
Undetained asylum-seeking immigrants without a lawyer prevailed in 19% of their cases, according to a 2024 congressional report, while those with a lawyer prevailed in 60% of them.
Evelyn Cedeño-Naik, an attorney with the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, which ran a legal help desk in Los Angeles and Orange County immigration courts, said calls have been pouring into the office.
“The contracts have been terminated but the need is still there,” she said. “People are very, very scared. We are seeing it every day.”
One of her clients, a mom with a 4-year-old, was in the middle of her asylum application when she was abruptly arrested and separated from her child.
“Thankfully there’s at least another person that can care for her child,” Cedeño-Naik said. “But they are separated.”
The woman now has a lawyer.
The rules of immigration courts are changing daily. The administration has cut off legal paths for thousands of immigrants to stay in the United States, terminating temporary protected status for some immigrants from Afghanistan and Cameroon, while pushing to end it for other countries such as Haiti. Government lawyers are asking judges to dismiss cases to fast-track deportation. Asylum cases that might once have been heard are being thrown out without a hearing. And families that had active cases and were regularly checking in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are getting arrested.
Cedeño-Naik said everyone, including attorneys, are anxious about why the legal system is “being used in this way.” And now, basic legal services meant to help people in what is often the most stressful and consequential moments of their lives are gone.
The group has continued to provide legal assistance online in hopes of reaching as many people as possible, and also has some walk-in services. And she said, it is practical now with agents regularly arresting people in the courthouse.
“We try to offer those options for individuals,” she said. “We know that getting the information is so important.”
