WASHINGTON: UN human rights experts on Tuesday denounced the Trump administration’s decision last year to cut legal aid for unaccompanied children in US immigration proceedings. The condemnation came days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged the Trump administration to ensure that its migration policies respect individual rights and international law.
“Denying ‌children their rights ‌to legal representation and forcing them to ‌navigate ⁠complex ​immigration ‌proceedings without legal counsel is a serious violation of the rights of children,” said the independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The White House dismissed the experts and said it had made attempts to locate children it says were smuggled into the United States under the previous administration, without elaborating with specific examples.
“No ⁠one takes the UN seriously because of their extreme bias and selective outrage – ‌they should be praising the Administration for ‍protecting children, not lying about ‍our policies,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said.
In ‍February, the US Department of the Interior ordered legal service providers working with the children to stop work and cut their funding. The providers sued over the move and a federal judge later temporarily restored ​the funding for the program. The cuts came amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds ⁠of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents.
The UN experts called the deportations unlawful and said they breached international human rights law prohibiting the removal of vulnerable groups, including children at risk of human trafficking. They also condemned the administration’s $2,500 offer to get the unaccompanied children to voluntarily leave the US
“Child-sensitive justice procedures should be guaranteed in all immigration and asylum proceedings affecting children,” said the experts, who have been in contact with the US government on the issue.
More than 600,000 migrant children have ‌crossed the US-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian since 2019, according to government data.