The Hood River community demonstrates solidarity amidst growing deportation threats by gathering for the national “A Day Without Immigrants” protest on Feb. 3 outside of Mercado Guadalajara.
The Hood River community demonstrates solidarity amidst growing deportation threats by gathering for the national “A Day Without Immigrants” protest on Feb. 3 outside of Mercado Guadalajara.
THE GORGE — President Donald Trump and the United States Department of Interior (DOI) officially stripped all funding from the Unaccompanied Children Program, which provided legal representation to minors in search of asylum, on March 21.
This comes after, as previously reported by Columbia Gorge News, the administration paused and then quickly reinstated the program in February, affecting 26,000 kids nationwide who came to America without a parent or guardian. Immigration Counseling Services (ICS), based in Hood River and Portland, is the only organization statewide that helps migrant children navigate the immigration process.
“These are kids we’re talking about,” said Gina Vorderstrasse, director of development and communications for ICS. “We’re talking about our most vulnerable clients who have already experienced a lot of trauma, a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty in their lives, and this program is vital to making sure they are supported.”
The Acacia Center for Justice, alongside a network of 85 nonprofit organizations like ICS, had a $200 million contract with the federal government to oversee the Unaccompanied Children Program that expired on March 29. Without renewal, ICS will lose about 40% of its annual revenue, but the firm still has 166 active cases in Oregon. Absent representation, nine-in-10 migrant children face deportation.
“They have to sit in front of a judge, and they have to argue for their lives against a government-appointed attorney whose sole job is to get them deported,” said Vorderstrasse. “It puts them in danger of exploitation and trafficking, and there’s been decades of bipartisan support to stop that from happening.”
Vorderstrasse couldn’t confirm for how long, but ICS will continue to represent its 166 clients without federal funding. She also noted the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, another nonprofit part of the same network, filed a lawsuit against the DOI and other agencies on March 26 to restore the program.
“The best thing we can do, at the end of the day, is to not give up on our clients, not give up on our mission and know that the work we do is really important to communities here in Oregon,” said Vorderstrasse. “We should be able to do that work without any constraints and all of these challenges.”
Other immigration updates
Beyond ending the Unaccompanied Children Program, the Trump administration has taken several other actions in recent weeks, continuing its crackdown on immigration.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is nearing a deal that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to cross-reference the names and addresses of suspected undocumented people with private taxpayer data, according to , according to the Washington Post. Congress expressly prohibited using IRS records against political enemies decades ago.
“This agreement between the IRS and DHS — if finalized — will have long-lasting and devastating implications on our economy, taxpayer privacy, immigrant communities, and the rule of law,” Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement.
On March 15,Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the first time since World War II, alleging a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua has undertaken a “predatory incursion” into U.S. territory. The law, which provides expanded presidential authority to detain or deport non-citizens, has never been used during peacetime, or against an individual gang.
The same day, Trump deported about 250 members of Tren de Aragua and another gang known as MS-13, both of which he designated as “foreign terrorist organizations,” to a prison in El Salvador. Reporting from the Guardian shows, however, that many men were arrested because of their tattoos, even though Tren de Argua doesn’t use tattoos as a symbol of affiliation.
On March 21, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the administration would revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people from Cuban, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, effective April 24. Federal immigration police have also individually targeted international college students for participating in pro-Palestinian actions, including Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University, Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University and many others.
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