Immigrant Groups Sue Trump Administration Over Fast-Tracked Asylum Cases for Children

Immigrant advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of implementing a "cruel and unlawful scheme" to expedite asylum cases for migrant children and arguing it has turned the immigration system into a "deportation assembly line."

The complaint, filed Thursday night, alleges that new government policies have diminished the rights of unaccompanied migrant children by rushing their asylum proceedings. Immigrant attorneys and advocates state that these accelerated processes, part of the administration's broader immigration crackdown, are leading to faster deportations, even in cases involving alleged human trafficking or threats of violence.

"A system that moves faster and that is by design made so that children are unable to access lawyers and are railroaded into deportation orders is not justice. It's assembly line deportation of the most vulnerable among us," said Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, during a press call.

The lawsuit highlights policy shifts by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that include significantly reducing notice times for asylum interviews, in some instances providing less than 24 hours' notice. Additionally, the Department of Justice has reportedly instructed immigration judges to complete all removal proceedings for detained unaccompanied children by January 31, 2027. To meet this deadline, immigration judges are allegedly refusing continuances longer than three weeks, according to the groups.

"This push isn't coming from just one agency. It's a coordinated whole-of-government operation that abandons due process and child safety in service of faster removals," said Jason Boyd, vice president for federal policy at the advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense.

This legal challenge follows a Department of Homeland Security announcement that unaccompanied migrant children would be offered $3,000 to self-deport, an increase from the previous year's incentive. Earlier in the month, the federal government established a team of government attorneys to represent migrant children in court, a move that has drawn criticism from advocacy groups who argue that the government prosecuting deportations should not also be responsible for their legal representation.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.