The Forum Daily | Monday, March 24, 2025https://immigrationforum.org/

**THE FORUM DAILY

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** ****On Friday, the administration ended a federal contract that provided 26,000 unaccompanied migrant minors with legal representation, reports Clara Harter of the Los Angeles Times [link removed].  

Last month the administration halted all work under this contract but reversed the decision within days. Its cancellation leaves around 100 legal aid organizations scrambling for next steps, Harter points out.  

The new announcement was made via a memo from the Interior Department, as first reported by Laura Romero at ABC News [link removed].  

In Arizona, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP) is scrambling to continue their services for unaccompanied migrant children amid funding cuts, reports Alisa Reznick at KJZZ [link removed].  

Legal representatives will still have funding to provide Know Your Rights training and information, but they warn about the complex court proceedings children would face alone. 

"[Ending legal services] is a very concerning, shocking situation, and people should be outraged," said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, FIRRP’s deputy director. "It's impossible to imagine how a child as young as 6 months old or 3 years old would be able to retain an attorney on their own."  

Separately, the federal government is looking to bring back detention centers for unaccompanied migrant children, report Fola Akinnibi and Rachel Adams-Heard of Bloomberg [link removed]. 

The Department of Health and Human Services opened a request for information [link removed] on Secure Care Placement services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) to house minors between the ages of 13 and 17 years, Bloomberg notes. 

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Clara Villatoro, the Forum’s assistant VP of strategic communications, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Soledad Gassó Parker, Dan Gordon, Broc Murphy and Becka Wall. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].  

**Policy Changes **

* U.S. to revoke legal status of more than a half-million migrants, urges them to self deport [link removed] (Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News) 

* IRS nears deal with ICE to share addresses of suspected undocumented immigrants [link removed] (Jacob Bogage and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post) 

* Venezuelan Immigrants Will Ask Judge to Maintain Their Protections in U.S. [link removed] (Jazmine Ulloa, The New York Times) 

* As Trump Broadens Crackdown, Focus Expands to Legal Immigrants and Tourists [link removed] (Zolan Kanno-Youngs,Tyler Pager and Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times) 

**Deportations and Enforcement **

* Venezuela says it will start accepting repatriation flights from the U.S. again [link removed] (Joe Hernandez, NPR) 

* Deportees from the US in Panama go embassy to embassy in desperate scramble to seek asylum [link removed] (Matías Delacroix and Megan Janetsky, Associated Press) 

* Exclusive: Thousands of agents diverted to Trump immigration crackdown [link removed] (Brad Heath, Joshua Schneyer, Marisa Taylor, Sarah N. Lynch and Mike Spector, Reuters) 

* Weekslong lockups of European tourists at US borders spark fears of traveling to America [link removed] (Julie Watson, Associated Press) 

* Immigrant women describe 'hell on earth' in ICE detention [link removed] (Lauren Villagran, USA Today) 

**Economy **

* 'Backbone of the labor force': How an immigration crackdown could hurt Louisville's economy [link removed] (Keely Doll, The Courier Journal)  

* Special week puts focus on how food gets to Americans’ tables — through farmworkers’ labor [link removed] (Simone Orendain, OSV News) 

**Immigrants in American Communities **

* Wisconsin hit record migration in '24. Will it last under Trump's immigration policies? [link removed] (Maia Pandey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) 

* How could Columbus families be impacted by proposed Trump travel bans? [link removed] (Danae King, The Columbus Dispatch) 

* 'This brings back a lot of trauma': Bhutanese-Americans living in central Pa. react to recent ICE raids | Local News | lancasteronline.com [link removed] (Brett Sholtis, Lancaster Online) 

* Op-Ed: The ‘bad immigrant’ lie — and why it’s so dangerous [link removed] (Cristina Jiménez, The Hill) 

Thanks for reading, 

Clara 

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