By American Bar Association
Since the launch of its emergency hotline in August, ProBAR has fielded more than 150 calls to the new Detention Orientation & Resources for Youth (DORY) hotline, which supports detained unaccompanied immigrant children who lack legal status and who face removal from the U.S. without access to legal services. From those calls, 65 children received legal help ranging from information about their rights to advice and counsel from experienced attorneys.
With the end of federal funding from the Unaccompanied Children’s Program to the long-standing network of legal service providers in July, access to legal support for minors held in detention has been drastically reduced. ProBAR and other similar organizations are now prohibited from visiting children in shelters to provide legal services such as Know-Your-Rights presentations on how to navigate the court system. Many children represented by ProBAR attorneys wait months to be reunified with their parents. Meanwhile, their legal cases proceed at a rapid pace before the immigration court and other federal agencies.
According to ProBAR records, more than 80 children have arrived in the regional Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) detention in the last month, and many have not received legal orientation services required by law.
The DORY hotline “is a critical lifeline for children who are afraid of going to court alone, who have questions about their rights to seek asylum and other meaningful legal protections, and whose prolonged detention has subjected them to extreme pain and suffering,” said Laura Peña, ProBAR director. “We are proud to uphold bedrock values of protecting children’s due process rights and ensuring continued access to counsel for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”
The hotline initiative comes one year after the federal government moved to repatriate or expel hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children who had arrived at the U.S.–Mexico border and were in federal custody under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. At least 76 children were removed from their foster homes and ORR shelters during the night and put on a plane headed for their home country.
But the plane never took off because ProBAR attorneys and other advocates intervened, going to shelters across the Rio Grande Valley, informing children of their legal rights and advocating against the attempt to violate those rights.
At the time, the attempt to send the children back to Guatemala drew immediate criticism from child-welfare advocates and immigration lawyers because it threatened due-process requirements in immigration law that ensure vulnerable children have an opportunity to be heard before an immigration judge.
ProBAR, based in Harlingen, Texas, with a field office in Houston, has provided trauma-informed legal services to unaccompanied children navigating complex immigration proceedings for 20 years. ProBAR is a project of the ABA Commission on Immigration. The Commission’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA) in Houston is a legal resource center that trains and supports legal advocates for immigrant children. The Commission’s Immigration Justice Project (IJP) in San Diego also provides legal services to unaccompanied children in and around San Diego, California.
(https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/09/new-probar-hotline-first-month/)
Since the launch of its emergency hotline in August, ProBAR has fielded more than 150 calls to the new Detention Orientation & Resources for Youth (DORY) hotline, which supports detained unaccompanied immigrant children who lack legal status and who face removal from the U.S. without access to legal services. From those calls, 65 children received legal help ranging from information about their rights to advice and counsel from experienced attorneys.
With the end of federal funding from the Unaccompanied Children’s Program to the long-standing network of legal service providers in July, access to legal support for minors held in detention has been drastically reduced. ProBAR and other similar organizations are now prohibited from visiting children in shelters to provide legal services such as Know-Your-Rights presentations on how to navigate the court system. Many children represented by ProBAR attorneys wait months to be reunified with their parents. Meanwhile, their legal cases proceed at a rapid pace before the immigration court and other federal agencies.
According to ProBAR records, more than 80 children have arrived in the regional Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) detention in the last month, and many have not received legal orientation services required by law.
The DORY hotline “is a critical lifeline for children who are afraid of going to court alone, who have questions about their rights to seek asylum and other meaningful legal protections, and whose prolonged detention has subjected them to extreme pain and suffering,” said Laura Peña, ProBAR director. “We are proud to uphold bedrock values of protecting children’s due process rights and ensuring continued access to counsel for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”
The hotline initiative comes one year after the federal government moved to repatriate or expel hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children who had arrived at the U.S.–Mexico border and were in federal custody under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. At least 76 children were removed from their foster homes and ORR shelters during the night and put on a plane headed for their home country.
But the plane never took off because ProBAR attorneys and other advocates intervened, going to shelters across the Rio Grande Valley, informing children of their legal rights and advocating against the attempt to violate those rights.
At the time, the attempt to send the children back to Guatemala drew immediate criticism from child-welfare advocates and immigration lawyers because it threatened due-process requirements in immigration law that ensure vulnerable children have an opportunity to be heard before an immigration judge.
ProBAR, based in Harlingen, Texas, with a field office in Houston, has provided trauma-informed legal services to unaccompanied children navigating complex immigration proceedings for 20 years. ProBAR is a project of the ABA Commission on Immigration. The Commission’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA) in Houston is a legal resource center that trains and supports legal advocates for immigrant children. The Commission’s Immigration Justice Project (IJP) in San Diego also provides legal services to unaccompanied children in and around San Diego, California.
(https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/09/new-probar-hotline-first-month/)
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