The Trump administration has awarded a $150 million contract to give legal representation to migrant children traveling alone to the U.S. to a small Texas law firm with ties to the administration but little experience in immigration law, prompting legal aid groups who've long represented those children to warn that the move could make them vulnerable to deportation.
The contract to the Houston-based Burke Law Group comes as the Trump administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign across the country and after the administration last week let a key contract with a network of legal groups working with immigrant children around the country expire with no replacement. The providers have increasingly raised worries that children won't have the experienced legal help they need at a time when the administration is intensifying efforts to remove people from the country.