Category: Nation & World

SAN ANTONIO — Tens of thousands of immigrant children who arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors in recent years may be forced to face a judge alone after a federal contract providing them legal representation expired on Friday.

The leaders of several nonprofit organizations that provide legal services to immigrant children say they will need to scale back or shutter their operations altogether starting next week. Collectively they represent about 24,000 children who crossed the nation’s southern border without a parent. The groups have spent much of the last year providing legal counsel even though the federal government has not reimbursed them.

Without a renewed contract, the legal aid organizations say many children with pending cases before an immigration judge will have to defend themselves without a lawyer. Most do not have a legal status in the country but can potentially qualify for asylum or a special visa. Many do not speak English as their primary language, and attorneys say they are more likely to be ordered deported if they do not have a lawyer.

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which provides children legal representation in the Washington, D.C., area, said the contract’s expiration comes as immigration judges and enforcement officers are pressuring unaccompanied minors to return home by signing voluntary departure forms.

“The best chance that a child has for a fair day in court and due process is to have an attorney at their side,” Lukens said. “It’s very clear the government is trying to take away that one piece of the puzzle.”

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services and oversees the shelters that house unaccompanied minors, said in a statement Thursday that the agency remains “fully compliant with its legal and regulatory obligations and does not act in any way that could dissuade a child from seeking appropriate legal relief.”

ORR officials said they offered to extend the existing contract so long as the providers share information about their clients. Several nonprofit leaders said the federal government was asking for confidential information about the children they serve and their sponsors — who are usually parents or relatives seeking family reunification. The organizations said they are legally and ethically unable to disclose such data and fear authorities could use it to target families during enforcement operations.

The Trump administration tried to halt some funding for attorneys to represent unaccompanied minors shortly after taking office last year. In February 2025, officials notified the Acacia Center for Justice that the organization needed to stop all work related to a $200 million contract that funds various groups providing the children with attorneys. But a few days later, officials reversed course and restored it without explanation.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration stopped reimbursing legal aid organizations who operate under the contract last November. The groups estimate they are owed $65 million in payments, and some have had to dip into their reserves in order to keep working.

Congress passed bipartisan legislation nearly two decades ago that mandates the funding to protect children from exploitation. The federal government, providers argue, is obligated to pay these organizations with the money lawmakers appropriated.

“They are clearly trying to destroy the program by grinding down the financial health of nonprofits,” Lukens said. “We have seen layoffs and furloughs and we will see a lot more of that if these invoices are not paid.”

The legal services program also allows attorneys to monitor conditions inside federally funded shelters that house unaccompanied minors, some of which are not regulated by state officials. Many of the children in shelters are waiting to be reunited with parents or relatives, who can claim them by providing identification and financial and biometric information to the government to prove their relation.

Fewer than 2,500 children are currently in federal custody, and on average they are staying there for 117 days — four times longer than they did a year ago, federal data shows.

Melissa Lopez, the executive director of Estrella del Paso, a legal services provider, said the complexity of the nation’s immigration laws make it necessary for children to have legal representation. She recounted the case of a 7-year-old boy who went before an immigration judge in Texas. He told the judge he wanted to return to his home country, where his father had been deported.

His lawyer helped him navigate the best way to do that. Immigrants can file for a voluntary departure to leave the country and avoid a deportation order with more severe consequences, but a young child, she said, would not know the difference or how to do that.

“We cannot expect a child to have the level of understanding of these legal differences,” Lopez said. “It’s absurd.”

Lopez said her organization will likely have to scale back its services in far west Texas and southern New Mexico. A year ago, Estrella had a team of 30 staff employees and attorneys. She expects just three staff members to continue serving 243 children in the weeks ahead. The organization is still waiting on $1.2 million in federal reimbursements for legal services provided through July, Lopez said.

“It’s not a question of can philanthropy fill the gap,” Lopez said. “The issue is the federal government is not meeting its obligations under the law.”

The United States has brokered a pathway to a deal between Hamas and the Israeli government for the Palestinian militant group to lay down its arms in Gaza in exchange for an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the territory, U.S. officials said Thursday, a potential breakthrough to end nearly three years of conflict there.

The framework was a potential step toward an Israeli pullout from Gaza and the eventual rebuilding of the territory, much of which has been reduced to rubble. But on Friday morning, Israel remained conspicuously silent on the deal, and after years of fighting, there was little trust between the sides.

President Donald Trump portrayed it as “a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” in a post on social media.

He said that the agreement envisioned Hamas disarming in stages, with the Israeli military pulling out of the territory gradually and being replaced by an international stabilization force that would work in partnership with a revamped Palestinian police force to provide security.

As of Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had not commented officially on Trump’s announcement, raising questions about where Israel stands on the latest development.

Hamas said in a statement Friday that Israel’s “commitment to halting the killing and ending its aggression is the fundamental prerequisite and the first step towards implementation” and that a “framework and timetable for what has been agreed upon” must be established.

A U.S. official said Hamas had agreed to the framework through Egyptian mediators. The official suggested that the plan didn’t diverge from what Israel agreed to nearly a year ago as part of a deal to free hostages — but acknowledged the possibility that the Israeli position has changed in the meantime.

“We’re not asking Israel to do anything other than agree to the 20-point plan that they agreed to initially, and so we’re very confident they will adhere to it. If they don’t, obviously, President Trump will be very, very disappointed,” a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations. Israel agreed to the plan in September 2025.

But the official acknowledged the challenges: “We’re going to try to do something very, very impossible,” the person said.

The road map leaves major implementation questions unanswered. U.S. officials characterized it as a step-by-step plan to hand power in Gaza to Palestinian authorities that are not Hamas, which launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that was met by an intense Israeli response. The composition of the new Palestinian administration was not fully clear, for instance, nor which countries would contribute to the international forces, or when they would deploy.

“This agreement is a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people. At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used as a base for terror attacks,” Trump wrote.

Israel has long insisted that Hamas disarm first. Hamas had called for Israeli forces to withdraw first. The White House on Thursday did not clarify how that deadlock will be overcome.

On Friday, an Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues, reiterated Israel’s long-standing position. “Israel demands the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and the full demilitarization of the Strip, as a prerequisite for any process,” the official said.

That would be a rejection of the step-by-step plan envisioned by Nickolay Mladenov, the director general of the Board of Peace, the Trump-backed group that was set up in the aftermath of the 2025 deal to release the remaining hostages that Hamas seized during the October 2023 attack.

Hamas said in its statement that any decision to give up heavy weapons was contingent upon a variety of factors, including “a complete cessation of all forms of aggression” and Israel’s “withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”

Throughout the week, the Israel Defense Forces have continued to conduct strikes in Gaza, on Friday announcing that the IDF had killed a Hamas supply officer and Hamas supply commander.

The political calendar in Israel may create a challenge in the short term. Netanyahu faces elections in October and is likely to face political pressure not to take actions that look like concessions to Hamas before then. One U.S. official said that the plan may take “200 to 350 days” to implement, saying that the emphasis was more on the concrete steps required to push the deal forward rather than the calendar.

Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey have all served as mediators during the extensive negotiations, with Egypt hosting senior Hamas officials in recent weeks for the final drive toward an agreement, U.S. officials said.

Netanyahu met with Trump on Tuesday while he was in Washington for the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).

The mediation efforts have taken place against the backdrop of the war in Iran, which historically was Hamas’ biggest backer. Its ability to support the Palestinian group has suffered over three years of escalating attacks by Israel and the U.S. that culminated in the February joint attack on Tehran and its leadership.

The humanitarian situation for the up to 2 million Gazans who remain packed in the Hamas-controlled part of the enclave “remains brutal,” according to the World Food Program. Residents in the territory are surrounded by the Israel Defense Forces, and “families lack water, sanitation and medicine,” the group said.

The question of which side moves first has posed a challenge to disarming Hamas and securing the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Some of the elements in the proposal unveiled Thursday echoed ideas that were floated by the Biden administration but never successfully implemented.

“This potential announcement by Hamas on disarmament could be meaningful,” Ilan Goldenberg, who worked on Gaza issues in the Biden White House, wrote on X. “The million dollar question will be how Israel responds. And I would put good money on Bibi … doing absolutely nothing to reciprocate.”

The Israeli military has cleared more than 60% of Gaza’s territory of Palestinians, and Netanyahu in May said that he had ordered Israeli forces to extend their control to 70% of the land. Gaza’s Palestinian residents are packed into the remainder of the territory, which is under Hamas control.

Hamas has previously stated that the group is open to “freezing or storing” its weaponry, but has said that such a move would only be taken once a clear path to a Palestinian state is established. The group has also said even if it disarms it will never forgo the “right to resist.”

Under the framework, the group would also disclose the extensive underground tunnel network that runs under much of Gaza so that the tunnels could be destroyed.

The Trump administration has also struggled to stand up a military force that it has said will take over control from Hamas for the management of the territory. The international stabilization force was announced in February, but since then countries that previously committed troops to the force put their commitments on hold indefinitely, including Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania.

The international force would be commanded by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers.

On the call Thursday, the administration did not provide updates on these specific commitments, but one official stated that the U.S. has “commitments for over 5,000 troops now from different countries that are participating and looking to continue to build it.”

In a statement on Friday, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — which is a technocratic team of Palestinians meant to organize governance of the strip — said that it “welcomes the progress announced yesterday regarding the road map, and the opening of a path toward beginning its implementation.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran was likely behind a coordinated cyberattack on more than 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota this week, according to several U.S. officials.

The FBI is investigating the attack, which comes as a five-month-old military conflict between the United States and Iran threatens to escalate.

Though intelligence agencies have not definitively concluded that Tehran is responsible, the hack follows urgent warnings by federal cybersecurity officials that Iran for months has been targeting internet-exposed devices that control operations at water, wastewater, and energy facilities in the U.S. and, in some cases, causing disruptions.

Intrusions have been noted at several water and energy systems across the country since shortly after the war began on Feb. 28, said Joe Slowik, director of threat research for Dataminr, a real-time commercial intelligence platform.

“It is not a secret that these things have been taking place since the spring,” he said. “There have been disruptions in multiple critical infrastructure sectors. It’s a big deal.”

The New York Times earlier reported that federal and state investigators believe Iran was likely responsible for the Minnesota attacks.

At least one system was briefly offline and another saw its remote sensors disrupted, but the state’s information technology agency notes that there are no active requests for Minnesotans to modify their drinking water usage.

The attacks took place on Sunday and Monday, according to a statement by Minnesota IT Services, the information technology agency.

The agency, as well as the affected municipalities, are working with state and federal authorities to share threat intelligence and remediate the attack.

Nate George, the mayor of Braham, Minn., said in an online statement that his city’s public works department discovered the attack early Monday morning. After learning at least four other Minnesota communities were affected, they determined the plant had been hacked.

“Public works isolated the affected system, restored a backup, and restarted the plant within approximately 90 minutes,” George said of the city’s response, noting that Braham’s residents received water from the city’s water tower while the plant was offline.

In the city of Plymouth, several devices that control the water and sewer systems’ operations were hacked and taken offline but have now been restored, said Michael Thompson, the city’s public works director. The water supply was not affected, he added. But devices known as programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, which operate on the city’s cellular network and track water level, pressure, pump operations, and equipment alarms, were impacted.

Iran has been actively targeting the U.S. with cyberattacks since the war started on Feb. 28, but most have not drawn headlines.

Kurt Gaudette, head of intelligence for Dragos, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in protecting critical infrastructure, noted a pattern with attacks in March and in Minnesota: the targeting of small utilities that use internet-exposed controllers with default passwords. “It’s very low-hanging fruit,” Gaudette said.

He said he has seen such attacks in the past, notably in late 2023, when a PLC at a municipal water pumping station in Aliquippa, Pa., was hacked. The attack, which caused no major disruption, was claimed by a group affiliated with Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and known as CyberAv3ngers.

The Aliquippa station used PLCs made by an Israeli firm, Unitronics, which were targeted by the hacking group across the U.S., Britain, Israel, and Ireland. Israel had just begun its invasion of Gaza in response to the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed about 1,200.

In general, Iran’s goal with cyberattacks seems to be less outright destruction than to deliver psychological effects to two audiences, said Alex Orleans, head of threat intelligence at Sublime Security, an email security company.

“The first is the American people, to make us freak out and to turn sentiment against the war by making it look like it’s not worth the costs, when in reality our systems are pretty resilient,” Orleans said.

The second is the Iranian regime itself, he said. “They want to show their bosses that they’re contributing to the war effort.’’

Slowik, who tracks foreign cyber threat actors, said that the events in Minnesota and other states, including in the Eastern U.S., are the work of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Cyber Electronic Command.

Iran’s actions “reflect a desire or need to say, ‘Hey, we can hit you too, even if it’s not New York City or Los Angeles,” Slowik said.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency issued advisories in April and July noted that the IRGC was exploiting PLCs.

On Thursday, the agency issued a new advisory saying that it is seeing “a significant increase” in cyber threat actors targeting programmable logic controllers in the water and wastewater system sectors. CISA urged they be disconnected from the internet as soon as possible and that default passwords be changed.

In March, the IT systems of a major medical equipment maker, Stryker, were disrupted for two to three weeks by a hacktivist front group known as Handala, which the Justice Department said is operated by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

Handala also claimed earlier this year to have hacked the personal email account of FBI Director Kash Patel.