Children in ICE detention from Wisconsin may have to go without a lawyer in court after President Donald Trump halted millions in appropriated federal funds.
The White House this week announced it would withhold $810 million in spending approved by Congress, including $567 million that would have “provided services to refugees, asylees and other non-citizens,” according to a memo from the White House.
A portion of that funding was set to go to the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
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It would have provided legal representation to children under 12 in deportation hearings, according to Erin Barbato, director of the clinic.
“We now will not be getting that funding,” Barbato said. “Which means that we lost a huge amount of capacity for the ability to serve these children.”
The organization planned to hire staff to represent these non-citizen children, called unaccompanied minors, who arrived in the U.S. without a parent, Barbato said.
Those children are now in ICE custody and awaiting potential deportation. And, since they are not American citizens, they are not guaranteed an attorney to represent them in court.
“An 18-year-old shouldn’t have to represent themselves in immigration court alone (either),” she said. “But a 3-year-old, a 4-year-old — I think we can all agree that is absurd.”
On Sept. 25, the White House announced that Trump would stop the funds through a maneuver called a pocket rescission. Withholding congressionally appropriated funding is illegal, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the move is likely to face legal challenges.
In a statement, the White House said Trump “is committed to utilizing all possible tools to cut wasteful and harmful government spending that does not benefit American citizens.”
Congress had allocated the funding to multiple agencies, including the one that would fund the UW clinic providing access to an attorney, Barbato said.
“I think most people believe that’s the least we can do,” she said.
Barbato’s clinic was just one of the programs affected by the cuts. The clinic works with children in a facility near Madison.
“I can’t say I’m shocked that the funding was taken away, but considering that Congress allocated this and they have the power of the purse, I’m hoping that it can be reversed,” she said.
The plan had been to hire a staff attorney and a paralegal whose work would focus on children in detention cases. Work on the effort has gone on for at least two years, she said. Now, more children will have to go to court alone.
“It feels paralyzing,” Barbato said. “Turning a child away and saying that I don’t have the resources to support them — and knowing that that could mean that they are in great danger — is extremely hard to live with.”
In this Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018, photo, provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a child looks at a book at South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP
As immigration backlog has grown, more go without attorneys
TRAC Immigration, a data gathering website, provides updated statistics on immigration detention numbers, court cases and enforcement actions.
Nationwide, there are approximately 3.1 million backlogged immigration court cases, according to TRAC.
Data from TRAC Immigration said there were more than 65,0000 people in ICE detention as of July 11.
The same website has recorded more than 514,000 new court cases logged in fiscal year 2026. Of that number, TRAC Immigration finds less than 2 percent had any sort of criminal activity, aside from possible illegal entry.
“What makes this even worse is in Wisconsin, we’re already considered a desert for legal services for immigrants,” Barbato said. “There are very few of us.”
In Wisconsin alone, TRAC Immigration estimates there are 28,148 pending immigration court cases. About 40 percent had some kind of legal representation.
Immigration courts in Illinois, which handle many Wisconsin cases, has a case backlog estimated around 198,768, according to TRAC research.
Grant Sovern, director of the Community Immigration Law Center, or CILC, said that organization is “representing people across the state — and if we’re lucky, we’re getting to one-third of the people who need a lawyer and can’t get to them.”
Sovern said there are about 20 immigration lawyers in the whole state of Wisconsin who practice this kind of immigration law. Nine of them work for CILC, and Sovern said it has been the only organization in Wisconsin doing this kind of work for all age groups in the state.
Barbato said finding legal representation may require hiring an attorney — or finding someone to work pro bono. And with the increasing numbers, Barbato said every pro bono attorney — and almost every private bar attorney is at capacity.
Having an attorney makes a huge difference in immigration court, she said. The attorney understands court’s rules, Latin phrases, options for deferral and other subtleties of law.
“Otherwise they are on their own and facing deportation without any sort of advocacy or knowledge of their rights,” Barbato said.
Earlier this month, TRAC released a report reviewing the latest court data. It showed that only 1 in 4 immigrants, including children, had an attorney in their case when a removal order was issued.
According to TRAC figures, in 2021 the odds of having an attorney in immigration court was about 63 percent. In 2026, that dropped to only 32 percent.
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