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WASHINGTON (CN) — A D.C. Circuit panel on Tuesday appeared doubtful that the Trump administration’s sudden cancellation of a federal contracting program providing legal advice and services to immigrants was legal if the government fails to begin providing the same services itself.
The three-judge panel heard arguments brought by a coalition of 12 immigrant rights groups, which served as government subcontractors for several “legal orientation” programs previously paid for and administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review.
When President Donald Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, he issued an executive order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which directed the Justice Department to pause distribution of all government contract funds to nongovernmental organizations “supporting or providing services, either directly or indirectly, to removable or illegal aliens” pending review.
On Jan. 22, the Justice Department issued a stop-work order to Acacia Center for Justice, the main contractor the plaintiffs subcontract with.
The same day, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also told its employees that the Executive Office of Immigration Review was pausing all legal orientation services and instructed any informational posters about the program to be taken down in ICE housing units and its law library.
Led by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, the coalition filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Jan. 31, arguing that the government’s decision flouted Congress’ decision to allocate $28 million to the program in the 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act.
The coalition specifically challenges the apparent termination of the Legal Orientation Program, the Immigration Court Helpdesk and the Legal Orientation Program for Custodians, which provide legal services to detained immigrants, non-detained immigrants and the custodians of unaccompanied minors, respectively.
Laura Sturges, attorney of Gibson Dunn and representing the providers, argued U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss wrongfully granted the government summary judgment after finding he did not have jurisdiction over the providers’ claims due to the Tucker Act.
The 1887 statute gives the U.S. Court of Federal Claims purview over most contractual claims.
Sturges said the Barack Obama appointee was wrong to accept declarations from acting director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review Sirce Owens that alluded to an “ill-defined” federalized version of the program that would no longer require third-party providers. She urged the panel to remand the case to allow Moss to rule on a more extensive record.
Sturges maintained that the providers were challenging the work stoppage itself rather than trying to restore their specific contracts, and thus, the only adequate relief they could obtain was an injunction lifting the stop-work order. The distinction would untie the Tucker Act from the case.
“The purpose of the services and activities of the legal orientation program are certainly to make the immigration courts more efficient and to provide the modicum of due process, the very bare minimum of due process for detained non-citizens going through the immigration system,” Sturges said.
U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, noted Tuesday’s case was the latest “shutdown case,” a term for the challenges against the Trump administration’s effort to reshape the federal government by gutting independent agencies and related federal programs.
Katas said there were two categories of shutdown cases: cases like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where the watchdog’s effective shutdown would injure consumers of the agency’s services; and cases like the Voice of America, where the media outlet amounted to a specifically named contractor receiving earmarked funds from Congress.
He asked Sturges how her case fit into that framework, to which she responded that the providers were around decades before the program itself existed, and their missions were now being thwarted by the government’s actions.
Justice Department attorney Sean Janda urged the panel to affirm Moss’ summary judgment ruling, arguing that on either challenged action — the termination of the Acacia contract and the federalization of the program — the providers fail because their claims can only be heard by the Court of Federal Claims.
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, asked whether the Federal Claims court would have sole jurisdiction in a case where the Justice Department completely stopped providing services, where the elimination of contracts is just part of that wider effort.
Janda suggested beneficiaries of the services could challenge the wider termination of the program but maintained that the providers’ only remedy here is related to their contracts and thus are limited to Federal Claims review.
“We’re not looking for damages — giving us money now does not solve our problem, which has been that every day, we are unable to provide the services that our organizations have been designed to provide,” Sturges said in her rebuttal. “What we are looking for is the executive agency to meet its obligation under the appropriation statute to spend $28 million in the furtherance of services and activities of the legal orientation program.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, rounded out the panel.
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