The 175 unaccompanied immigrant children in Oregon who have a lawyer could lose that representation now that the federal contract funding their legal aid expired Saturday, Aug. 1, with no announced replacement.

Immigration Counseling Service, the state's sole nonprofit providing attorneys to unaccompanied minors, hasn't been paid by the federal government since December.

The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement owes the Portland-based firm $640,000, executive director Frank Garcia told The Oregonian on Friday, July 31.

The stakes land close to home for Beaverton's immigrant families. Washington County logged 87 federal immigration enforcement requests over the past year, the most of any Oregon county, according to state data reported by the Portland Tribune. Statewide, requests surged 246% to 329 total, per the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.

Three lawyers, 175 kids

ICS, founded in 1978, operates with just three attorneys carrying the entire caseload. Attorney Becky Hillstrom alone represents 80 children. The firm has stopped accepting new clients, and a waitlist is growing, according to the Statesman Journal.

"It's just really tough right now because all I see is my savings, any kind of reserve, dwindle and dwindle and dwindle and dwindle and dwindle," Garcia said.

Garcia said ICS plans to stay operational until at least November but may need to downsize or close if funding doesn't improve. He is reaching a point where he may not be able to cover salaries or rent.

National contract collapses

ICS is one of roughly 100 subcontractors working through the Acacia Center for Justice, a national organization that contracts with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Together, those subcontractors represent more than 20,000 unaccompanied minors nationwide and are collectively owed $65 million.

The Acacia contract expired Saturday, Aug. 1. HHS had offered a bridge contract but attached a condition requiring attorneys to share data on the children they represent.

Acacia refused, saying the terms would force lawyers to hand over attorney-client privileged information that could be used to deport the children, according to The Guardian.

Kids in Need of Defense, another national subcontractor, already exited the program in late June after accumulating more than $20 million in unpaid invoices.

A federal court hearing on the payment dispute is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 6.

What it means without a lawyer

Children without legal representation win the right to stay in the country less than 10% of the time, and immigration judges are nearly 100 times less likely to grant relief to a child without counsel, according to Acacia.

The numbers are stark. Immigration judges have issued roughly 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders monthly against unaccompanied minors since January 2025, about four times the rate from the prior term, according to a ProPublica analysis cited by The Guardian.

Oregon's senator pushes back

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter to ICS on July 28, offering to help recoup the $640,000 owed. In late May, Wyden co-signed a bipartisan Senate letter urging HHS to pay pending invoices immediately, calling the non-payments a violation of "numerous laws."

On Friday, July 31, Wyden said his staff had witnessed a 6-year-old girl representing herself in immigration court. "The Trump administration is quietly breaking the law and continuing to smother a federal office created and funded by Congress to protect children from trafficking and other dangers," Wyden said in a statement.

Congress set aside approximately $5 billion in 2024 to fund the unaccompanied children's legal services program through September 2027. The program has received bipartisan funding since 2003.

Local resources

Families in Washington County seeking immigration legal help can contact ICS at (503) 221-1689 or visit ics-law.org. Adelante Mujeres, a DOJ-recognized legal services organization at 2030 Main St., Suite A, Forest Grove, can be reached at 503-810-2909.