A small Texas law firm with ties to the Trump administration has declined a $150 million federal contract to represent migrant children traveling alone to the U.S.

Background

The Burke Law Group, a Houston-based firm with little experience in immigration, was offered the contract as the administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign. The contract offer came after a key contract with nearly 100 providers working with immigrant children around the country expired at the end of July with no replacement.

Unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody are being temporarily represented by another group, but it is unclear how things will shake out after its contract expires in December. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the contracts, offered no insight into why Burke declined the offer.

Details

Burke Law Group’s founder, Marcella Burke, served in President Donald Trump’s first administration as a lawyer with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. Others on its roster include Justin Shubow, a supporter of Trump’s efforts to require federal buildings to adhere to classical and traditional architectural styles, and a former Trump appointee to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

Migrant children who are detained after entering the U.S. without their parents are usually entrusted to federal government care. Congress created various legal protections for them, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires the government to provide legal representation for children put into deportation proceedings.

About 1,800 children were living in shelters and roughly 22,000 facing deportation were living with outside sponsors such as family members, according to the legal service providers whose contract expired.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.