THE GORGE — On Feb. 18, President Donald Trump required Immigration Counseling Service (ICS) and all other nonprofit law firms to immediately stop representing children who, without a parent or guardian, entered the United States in search of asylum. Three days later, Trump reinstated the Unaccompanied Children Program.
“We have some of the most vulnerable individuals in our country,” said Frank Garcia, the executive director of ICS, which has offices in Hood River and Portland. “We’re their safe harbor, and they’re learning to build trust all over again because they’ve left their own country in real difficult circumstances — under an S.O.S. situation. If they go back, chances are they may not survive.”
ICS is the only organization that provides legal services to unaccompanied children in Oregon, and according to Garcia, nine-in-10 face deportation without representation.
“It was just heartbreaking,” said Jean Sheppard, a staff attorney at the Hood River office who primarily works with adults and families. “All I could think of was, ‘What world are we living in that this is even possible?’”
ICS has a client who’s 3 years old. Without an attorney, these children, many of whom don’t speak English, are expected to file their own 10-page asylum application or obtain the correct type of visa. They must answer questions in front of a judge while barely being able to see over the stand. Across the state, ICS has 164 active cases in Oregon and continued to provide services during the pause, even without funding.
The Acacia Center for Justice oversees a network of 85 nonprofit organizations, including ICS, that provide direct representation for 26,000 migrant children nationwide through a $200 million federal contract. About 40% of ICS’s annual revenue comes via its subcontract with Acacia.
“Our clients have legal rights, and so it’s our job to ensure that they know their rights, and then do our best to manage that due process,” said Garcia. In “triage mode,” he scrambled to take inventory and redirect different funding sources, attempting to cover the lost revenue for an unknown period of time and keep the doors open.
In a letter to Acacia, the United States Department of the Interior wrote its stop-work order was “being implemented due to causes outside of your control,” offering little explanation otherwise. Within 48 hours, members of the public submitted more than 15,000 letters to Congress demanding the program be restored, which occurred on Feb. 21.
The same day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a memo directing agents to track down unaccompanied minors, and just under 500,000 have been referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement since 2020. Another ICS program that educates immigrants on U.S. history and civics to help them pass a naturalization test, one of the final steps in the citizenship process, has also been paused.
“There are other ways to save money. There’s other ways to be more efficient without being cruel and inhumane,” said Sheppard. “It’s almost impossible to predict what they’re going to do next.”
She highlighted a budget resolution that narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week. While the Senate hasn’t approved it yet, the budget proposes a $90 billion increase for the Department of Homeland Security and all but necessitates steep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that help the poor.
Sheppard expressed concerns about an even larger deportation effort, and both pushed back on common narratives attributed to immigrants.
“Oregon is an agribusiness state ... They’re part of our economic engine, and that economic engine thrives when your employees are stable,” said Garcia. “These people wouldn’t come if there wasn’t a need for it. Nobody wants to do the most difficult jobs in this country, in these industries, nobody wants to do them. They’ve earned it on meritocracy — it wasn’t taken from anybody.”
“A lot of these folks pay taxes, pay into Social Security, but never take benefits out ... They know that if they take those benefits, then they’re barred later from adjusting their status,” said Sheppard. “Immigrants spend money at grocery stores and buy cars, so they contribute to the economy. Everyone assumes that they’re just a complete drain ... and that’s so wrong.”
Apart from unaccompanied minors, ICS helps immigrants adjust their status and achieve citizenship along with serving victims of domestic violence and human trafficking for a low bono, or discounted, rate. Visit www.ics-law.org to fill out a consult request form or to donate. Ultimately, Garcia urged members of the community to be informed advocates.
“I believe our country is strong, and it’s stronger when we rise above and step towards situations where people need help no matter their status of citizenship, no matter their race, no matter their ethnicity, no matter their gender,” said Garcia. “It’s all about disarming people’s fear around difference.”
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