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Immigration hard-liners, Trump advisor Stephen Miller, left, and current “border czar” Tom Homan, were key architects of Donald Trump’s controversial first-term family separation policy.<\/span>Chris Kleponis\/CNP via ZUMA Press (Miller); Francis Chung\/CNP via ZUMA Press (Homan)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The immigrant families <\/span>separated <\/span>at the US-Mexico border during Trump\u2019s first administration have gotten some bad news: Essentially, Trump\u2019s second administration is taking away their lawyers and giving them new ones. <\/p>\n The new ones work for the government.<\/p>\n Put another way, the Trump administration, which has the power to deny<\/a> immigrants\u2019 applications to stay in the United States, will also be helping them fill out those applications. And if that sounds like a conflict of interest, that\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s backtrack a bit: In 2018, the ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit<\/a> against the first Trump administration for illegally separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the border, with no tracking process or records that would allow them to be reunited. The case dragged on after Trump lost his bid for reelection, and the Biden administration reached a settlement with the ACLU in 2023. The settlement gave separated families a path to obtain asylum in the United States, and it guaranteed them legal assistance as they worked through the complicated immigration system.<\/p>\n Until recently, such legal assistance was offered through Acacia, a nonprofit that specializes in immigrant legal defense. But in April, Trump\u2019s Justice Department told Acacia it would not renew its contract, which ended this week, according to a report by the California Newsroom<\/a> collaboration. The Justice Department told the court overseeing the ACLU lawsuit that its Executive Office for Immigration Review would provide the legal services instead. This will \u201cmaximize efficiency,\u201d the department\u2019s lawyers claimed.<\/p>\n But efficiency for whom? Experts interviewed by the California Newsroom worried that the change in representation would make it easier for Trump to deport the families and separate them all over again. \u201cThe government hasn\u2019t shown them that they have their interests in mind,\u201d said Sara Van Hofwegen, who manages legal programs at Acacia.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is about as extreme a conflict of interest as you can imagine for the party that is adjudicating matters to provide legal advice,\u201d added David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University. <\/p>\n According to Super, immigrants separated from their families under the first Trump administration\u2014and who no doubt are aware of its current effort to deport as many migrants as possible\u2014would likely be afraid to divulge sensitive information to their new government attorneys. There\u2019s also a risk the government might \u201ctrick people into sharing information that might seem to weaken their case,\u201d he added, or that it will take information out of context\u2014falsely claiming, for example, that an immigrant is part of a dangerous gang simply because he has tattoos<\/a>.<\/p>\n In short, if the Justice Department takes over legal representation for the families, Super said, \u201cit opens \u201cthe door wide for them [to get] more information they can distort.\u201d<\/p>\n The ACLU is pushing back against the new arrangement, but it\u2019s unclear whether US District Court Judge Dana Sabraw will sympathize. At a hearing this week, Sabraw said the ACLU had not proved that any harm had already taken place. Its lawyers, he said, could seek relief on a case-by-case basis if they were able to show that the families were missing important legal deadlines because they were not getting appropriate legal assistance.<\/p>\n