The Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh (JFCS) and six immigrant clients have filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), alleging that the Trump administration is deliberately targeting unaccompanied children for rapid deportation to increase removal statistics.

According to The Guardian, the suit asserts that children are being deported even when they qualify for legal protections, including Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status — a classification available to immigrant children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected — and T nonimmigrant status, which is designated for survivors of human trafficking. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico and Canada are required to be placed in formal removal proceedings — not expedited removal — and transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a framework intended to give them time to pursue eligible legal relief.

"What a society will tolerate happening to children, they will tolerate happening to anyone," said Dana Gold, JFCS's chief operating officer.

Since June, JFCS reports that immigration judges have ordered the removal of children rather than granting them time to pursue legal pathways, even in cases where SIJ status had already been approved. Approved SIJ classification does not itself confer lawful permanent residence or automatic protection from removal; beneficiaries must separately apply for a green card, a process subject to annual visa caps that have created documented backlogs for applicants from certain countries. Hearings are being scheduled with minimal notice and compressed into biweekly sessions, according to the organization.

Two of the plaintiffs include a 17-year-old trafficking survivor from Guatemala, who was deported while her T-status application was pending, and a 19-year-old Vietnamese asylum seeker who was deported despite having received approved SIJ status.

The lawsuit also highlights the government's decision to terminate legal representation contracts covering approximately 20,000 unaccompanied children, leaving many to appear before immigration judges without legal counsel. These federally funded services, administered through nonprofit organizations, have long served as the primary source of legal representation for unaccompanied children in government custody. Under U.S. immigration law, unaccompanied children are not entitled to government-appointed attorneys, making such contracted legal services critical to ensuring they can navigate complex proceedings. Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University has consistently shown that represented immigrants — particularly children — are far more likely to obtain relief or avoid removal than those without counsel.

DHS stated that it is "laser-focused on protecting children," adding, "All illegal aliens receive due process." The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the nation's immigration court system, did not provide comment.