Hochul shells out over $7M to cover legal bills for 1,400 migrant children in NY

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the Empire State will be shelling out over $7 million to cover the legal bills for more than 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children across New York.

The $7.25 million in funding will cover an estimated 1,400 migrant kids facing removal proceedings, including about 250 in detention, the governor said at a press conference in Manhattan alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani and state Attorney General Letitia James.

The announcement came after the Trump administration let its contract with a network of about 100 providers working with migrant kids nationwide lapse in July.

“It’s cruel. It’s illegal. And for nearly two decades our federal government required by law that these children be protected when they cross the border,” Hochul railed.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, passed during President George W. Bush’s tenure, requires the US government to provide legal representation for kids in deportation proceedings.

Children caught crossing into the US alone are generally entrusted to the federal government and placed in the care of an adult sponsor, typically a parent, relative or family friend by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Trump in May tightened regulations to block illegal immigrants from serving as sponsors, after the ORR reportedly lost track of 320,000 children under President Joe Biden’s administration. 

“New York refuses to stand idly by while the federal government abandons immigrant children and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and deportation,” Mamdani said. 

Hochul has ramped up her campaign against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement heading into her November re-election campaign against Republican candidate Bruce Blakeman.

The incumbent Democratic governor has gone so far as threatening counties to comply with Democrat-backed sanctuary laws and accusing federal immigration authorities of overreach.