Trump Made a 13-Year-Old Be His Own Lawyer. It’s Exactly as F@#ked Up as It Sounds.
No lawyer, two bad choices, and a deportation order for a kid who told the judge, “I have no one.”
A note from Lawrence
A thirteen-year-old from Honduras named Angel stood before a federal immigration judge in Harlingen, Texas, with no lawyer and no adult in his corner. The government brought its attorney. The judge offered him a choice between voluntary departure and a removal order, a call grown adults with law degrees agonize over. He cried, “I have no one,” and was ordered deported.
Most Americans assume everyone in court gets a lawyer. That right covers criminal court, not immigration court, even for kids. Congress tried to patch the hole in 2008 with a bipartisan law signed by George W. Bush, and for years a federal legal-aid program got children representation. I explain how that help disappeared and who decided a middle schooler should argue his own case.
