Washington, D.C. – KIND echoes the congressional outrage expressed in the May 28, 2026, letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. regarding the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s ongoing efforts to hinder the delivery of legal services to unaccompanied children as mandated under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008. In May 2026, ORR stated that it would not release back payments to the nonprofit organizations that are contracted to perform such work until the groups provide new, additional information to prove that the services have been appropriately provided – information not required under the contract which could violate client confidentiality obligations. This breach could soon jeopardize the safety of thousands of children in the United States and threaten a system of protection that has served these children for nearly two decades.
As mandated under the TVPRA, ORR has long funded legal services for unaccompanied children. Nearly 100 subcontractors – legal service providers across the country – conduct this work under an ORR-administered contract.
The recent letter sent to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from 74 members of Congress warned that the federal government’s conduct threatens the viability of the nationwide network of nonprofit legal service providers necessary for the federal government to fulfill its legislative mandate under the TVPRA. Congressional leaders urged the Secretary to immediately retract the threat of nonpayment and abandon newly proposed reporting requirements that fall outside of contract’s existing, agreed upon terms.
“It cannot be overstated how important legal services are to the protection of unaccompanied and separated children,” said KIND President Wendy Young. “Legal services are front-line protection that help safeguard these children against human rights abuses, trafficking, exploitation and other harm. Attorneys help ensure that children appear for their immigration court proceedings and that those proceedings are completed more efficiently in a time of significant adjudicatory backlogs. Without an attorney, an unaccompanied child has virtually no chance of receiving due process in the complex and adversarial U.S. immigration system.”
Funding for unaccompanied children’s legal services has been targeted by the administration for more than a year. Administration officials have at various points abruptly halted funding supporting unaccompanied children’s legal services. That included sudden termination of funding for legal representation of over 26,000 unaccompanied children in March 2025, but the district court for the Northern District of California in CLESPA v. HHS ordered ORR to restore the funding on the basis that unaccompanied children’s legal services are legally mandated under the TVPRA and that Congress explicitly appropriated funding for this purpose. The Ninth Circuit subsequently declined to dissolve the TRO issued by the lower court, which means that HHS/ORR is required to continue to fund legal services. Yet the government continues to take steps that only further endanger children.
Supported by this funding, legal service providers offer critical legal representation, screenings, and Know Your Rights presentations to many thousands of unaccompanied children in communities nationwide. Under the terms of the contract, ORR must reimburse legal service providers in a timely fashion for legal services rendered using money that Congress has expressly appropriated, and ORR already obligated, for this purpose.
KIND’s U.S. legal programs currently serve more than 5,000 children, connecting them with vital legal representation and support services that safeguard their physical and emotional well-being. The significant majority of those clients’ cases are funded by the federal government.
By jeopardizing legal services in children’s ongoing legal cases, ORR’s failure to issue payments imperils these children’s safety and compromises their access to critical safeguards afforded by the TVPRA.
“While the government’s conduct poses grave risks for the clients we serve in the United States, KIND’s commitment to protecting unaccompanied children in the United States and beyond U.S. borders remains undeterred,” Young said. “KIND’s programs are as important today as at any other time in our organization’s history. Our work will remain centered on our clients and on creating a world where their protection, not politics, drives decision making about the policies in place to keep them safe.”
###
Media Contact: Megan McKenna, mmckenna@supportkind.org, 202-631-9990