The Trump administration has turned the immigration system for unaccompanied immigrant children into a "deportation assembly line," according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by six legal aid organizations that say children are being given as little as 24 hours' notice before asylum interviews and are rushed through removal proceedings.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Maryland, offers one of the most detailed looks yet at what immigration attorneys describe as a sweeping effort by the federal government to accelerate asylum and deportation cases involving children, including an alleged new interview schedule process at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and court processing deadlines at the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
Since President Donald Trump's return to office in January 2025, asylum has been even further restricted than it was at the end of the Biden administration, with little to no new entries and a higher rate of denials by immigration judges. Attorneys and advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about unaccompanied children still waiting to be processed, due to a lapse in funding for legal aid under the current administration.
"The United States guarantees unaccompanied children an immigration system that meets their unique needs. EOIR’s and USCIS’s new policies make those guarantees a hollow promise," plaintiffs wrote in their complaint. "This is not the immigration process that Congress intended for unaccompanied children; it is a deportation assembly line depriving them of their rights."
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment via email Friday morning.
A DOJ official said the department could not comment on ongoing litigation, but added that hearings could not be scheduled at short notice unless an attorney or immigrant requests it, and that all cases were decided in accordance with applicable law.
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What the Lawsuit Alleges
The groups behind the lawsuit, including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, The Door, and The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), allege that multiple federal agencies are illegally dismantling the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children.
Their complaint argues that protections for this group, many set up by Congress around 20 years ago to help those who have experienced violence or abuse, speak little English, and lack parents or guardians, are being undone.
Neha Desai, one of the attorneys on the case from Children’s Human Rights & Dignity, told Newsweek that it used to be rare for children to have to appear in court multiple times and file an asylum claim before they could be reunited with family.
"Now, kids are being ordered removed within a week or two of arriving in the U.S. because they have not yet filed an asylum claim. This is to say nothing of the fact that access to counsel is nearly impossible for newly arrived children because of the lack of federal funds for attorneys who are qualified to represent them," Desai said.
"On the USCIS side, when a child does file an asylum application, they are now routinely given only a few days and sometimes only a few hours' notice before their asylum interviews. This is arguably the most important interview of their life, and for some this interview has life or death implications."
The groups say USCIS has scheduled more than 600 asylum interviews for their child clients since August 1, many of them with overlapping hearings that attorneys simply cannot attend at the same time. Notice of these hearings is, at times, coming less than 24 hours before children are expected to appear, while evidence is supposed to be submitted 14 days before an appearance.
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In the filing, the groups lay out some examples of cases its attorneys have dealt with in recent months, including a rescheduling denial despite an attorney being involved in a car crash, while others had notice less than 24 hours before hearings.
"The Door’s attorneys had no opportunity to prepare their clients, one of whom suffers from a heart condition and was hospitalized the evening before the interview," the complaint read. "When USCIS nonetheless proceeded with the interview the next day, the child became so demonstrably distressed that a supervising asylum officer finally agreed to reschedule the interview—but only after repeatedly refusing to allow the client’s attorney to intercede on her behalf."
The complaint alleged that a memo issued in September mandated that all pending child asylum cases be completed by the end of January 2027.
"Our clients have also heard immigration judges say they're not allowed to grant more than a few weeks continuance for any child and we think that is likely because of the directive to complete their dockets though we've seen examples of continuance denials or only short continuance grants for unaccompanied children living in the community as well," Desai said.
How Long do Migrant Children's Cases Usually Take?
Immigration courts have seen their backlogs grow in recent years, with a varying number of immigration judges and a huge influx of new arrivals between 2020 and 2024 adding to the pressure on the system.
However, the backlog for unaccompanied immigrant children's cases has fallen sharply. Pending cases peaked at 61,648 in fiscal year 2021, dropping to 16,560 by the third quarter of 2026 in July.
Yet many of the cases still in the system have been pending for years. Of those 16,560 pending cases earlier this year, roughly 60 percent had been waiting more than 5 years.
Immigration court proceedings involving unaccompanied children have historically moved slowly. According to EOIR statistics, the median case had been pending for nearly 2,400 days as of July.
What Happens Next
The lawsuit arrives at a moment of significant change in the immigration court system for unaccompanied children and adults alike.
The dispute now before the court centers on whether the administration's efforts to move cases more quickly address longstanding delays or undermine protections Congress created for some of the most vulnerable people in the immigration system.
Attorneys behind the lawsuit argue that children are being deprived of meaningful chances to pursue asylum claims, while the government is expected to defend its handling of a backlog that, in some cases, has left migrant children waiting years for resolution.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas