Every Democrat in the Texas congressional delegation is pressing federal health officials for clarity after learning that Trump administration officials reached out to a state legal-aid agency about representing immigrant children headed to deportation hearings. The lawmakers say the ask, combined with other shifts in how the government houses these kids, hints at a broader plan to funnel unaccompanied minors into Texas so they can be removed more quickly.
According to Texas Tribune reporting, the contact began last month, when aides working for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton first called Scott Ehlers, who runs the Texas Indigent Defense Commission — an agency built to help low-income Texans facing criminal charges, not immigration cases. A Justice Department hearing officer followed up shortly after. Ehlers responded that the work fell outside what state law lets his commission handle. A DOJ spokesperson later told the Tribune that the Office of Refugee Resettlement had actually approached Paxton's office first, which passed the request to Ehlers' commission because it believed it lacked the authority to take on the work itself, and that the department was still reviewing whether such an arrangement would even be lawful.
