Happy Friday in NYC, where more than 24,000 migrant children across the country, including 1,400 in New York state and over 700 in the city, are set to lose their legal representation.

Since 2008, the bipartisan Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act has required the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that unaccompanied children facing deportation have legal representation. The federal contract that funds those services expires today. With no subsequent agreement established to pay legal providers, thousands of children could be left to navigate immigration court alone.

Already, hundreds of children a month in New York City are brought in front of an immigration judge for proceedings, often without any other support than a child advocate, who usually has no legal training. Many of these children are unaccompanied by their parents and Zoom into their hearings from classrooms, beds or rocking chairs. Children as young as 3 years old have been questioned about why they came to the United States and given 2 weeks to fill out crucial forms written in languages they don’t speak.

Those numbers will only skyrocket without federal funding. “We’re going to see a lot of kids railroaded into taking voluntary departure, aka self-deport, even where their protection needs are acute and where they would be facing real danger to their lives in their countries of origin,” Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, which oversees the funding contract with the federal government, told The City Reporter.

The Trump administration initially attempted to terminate its contract with Acacia last spring, but a federal judge ordered the government to restore it. However, late in 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services began delaying their payments, endangering critical services. The $65 million in unpaid bills accrued since December are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.

With the expiration of the contract, the Trump administration is under no legal obligation to continue the fund. New York City has committed $17 million to pay lawyers for unaccompanied children, but providers say it won’t be able to make up the gaps. The loss comes as the Trump administration ramps up deportation efforts, including moving up trial dates, expediting removal procedures and limiting access to other resources.

“They’re cutting off access to lawyers for these children, but they need lawyers now more than ever,” said Beth Baltimore, the deputy director of the Legal Services Center at The Door, a New York nonprofit representing young people in New York City. “It was never a system that a child could navigate alone, but now it’s so much more complex and so much more difficult.”

Common wisdom is changing; playing with your food is in.

At least, that was the word at the Children’s Food Festival, held Saturday at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Families from across Brooklyn came to the museum to learn about food, farming and food science through hands-on play and exploration.

“Our entire building is really dedicated to tactile learning. We saw food as the next iteration,” said Atiba Edwards, president and CEO of BCM.

“Our children think that French fries come from a fast food store. They’re unaware that a French fry is a potato first and that potato actually grows underground, and that’s something that they can be a part of,” said Director of Partnerships DeVonne Jackson-Perez.

Read on to learn more.

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