FIRST ON FOX: A federal timeline provided by officials overseeing unaccompanied migrant children challenges reports that a 1-year-old boy was left to navigate immigration court without counsel, showing that legal service providers intervened to secure representation following an initial hearing.
Addressing media reports highlighting toddlers appearing before immigration judges, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Acting Director Angie Salazar and Senior Advisor John Fabbricatore pushed back on headlines alleging systemic gaps in child legal representation, arguing that contractor failures and lack of invoice oversight created the initial court lapses.
"We don't have this big movement where we have a bunch of 1-year-olds who are going to court," Fabbricatore told Fox News Digital.
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According to ORR timeline records obtained by Fox News Digital, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers first encountered the 1-year-old boy and his 17-year-old mother near Naco, Arizona, on June 25. The child was accompanied by his mother at all court proceedings.
The critical gap occurred in July under the agency's former contractor, the Acacia Center for Justice, records show.
On July 1, Acacia completed legal orientation and consultation for the mother and child, but failed to file an E28 notice of appearance before the immigration court.
Consequently, during the child's first scheduled court hearing on July 8, no attorney was present — not even as a friend of the court — despite Acacia holding an active federal legal services contract at the time. The federal legal services contract with Acacia officially ended July 31.
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Following the end of the Acacia contract, the agency transitioned legal service oversight to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), which officially initiated legal services Aug. 5. During an Aug. 7 appearance, the mother and child were granted additional time to obtain counsel, while USCRI representatives attended subsequent hearings on Aug. 17 and Aug. 28 as a friend of the court.
On Aug. 31, a motion was filed by the friend of the court and mother requesting court-appointed counsel at government expense, which was later denied by the immigration judge.
Progress continued into September as child advocates were officially appointed on Sept. 23, and USCRI filed a formal E28 notice of appearance on Sept. 25 to become the attorney of record. On Sept. 29, USCRI officially represented both mother and child in immigration court. The judge subsequently granted a continuance on Oct. 2, leading into a follow-up hearing scheduled for Friday.
Officials explained that the July breakdowns highlighted the core reason the administration terminated Acacia's multimillion-dollar contract, which was awarded under the Biden administration in November 2023. According to federal contract records on USAspending.gov, the Department of Health and Human Services had awarded the Acacia Center for Justice a $356.3 million bridge contract for legal services for unaccompanied children. Of that total award, more than $236.9 million had been outlaid prior to the contract's dissolution.
The network previously provided counsel to roughly 20,000 migrant children across the U.S., according to its website.
"I knew we were signing off on every invoice that we were receiving for legal services to the tune of $20-plus million sometimes each month," she told Fox News Digital. "So it made no sense to me that legal service providers were saying kids were unrepresented for a lack of funding."
"I tried to understand who was represented before," she added. "I tried to understand what we were paying for under this direct representation, but the invoices we received were completely redacted. There is no way I could ever know exactly what service was provided during the month."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Acacia Center for Justice for comment. The contract funded a slew of services, including legal screenings, representations and presentations on the rights of migrant children in detention.
Following the dissolution of the Acacia contract, the ORR entered into a $20 million contract with USCRI, which expires Dec. 31.
"So USCRI was showing up in court as a friend of the court to ensure that there was at least somebody present in case Acacia did not show up," Fabbricatore said. "Now, as those cases are being looked at, USCRI is able to go in and actually meet with these children and then represent them in a follow-up hearing. So there may be some hearings where a child shows up, and initially they don't have representation, but USCRI will be there, identify that child, and then be able to move forward in the future as a representative for that child."
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Salazar emphasized that ORR officials track which children are represented by which lawyers on specific dates, noting that the agency respects attorney-client privilege.
"The former provider refused to give us those measurables," Fabbricatore said. "They refused to give us the alien registration number so we could determine what cases they were actually representing. They didn't want to give that. They refused to give that, and that was a holdup for us because we needed to know who was actually being represented so we can ensure that every kid at least had their legal orientation and had a legal representative that was talking to them."
Salazar noted that about 2% of migrant children in ORR custody are under the age of 5. Another 85% are ages 13 to 17, with 62% falling into the 16-to-17 bracket.
"What we said to our new grantee (USCRI): ‘We want you in 100% of the hearings where kids in our care are showing up to their immigration hearings,’" she said. "That is happening. I think we're at like 98%."
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Fabbricatore added there are currently 1,690 migrant children in ORR custody.
"Under Biden, they had 22,000 in care a day. So it's a very vast difference," he said. "We've been able to lower that census, get kids through the court process quicker, and get them back with their parents if possible."
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts released a video of alleged sham marriage mastermind Jennifer Gonzalez detailing her pay-for-play scheme which officials say netted her over $6 million.
The U.S. Attorney's Office accused Gonzalez of orchestrating fake marriages between U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants, charging the immigrants up to $40,000 per marriage.
Gonzalez can be seen on a video recorded by a witness cooperating with federal law enforcement explaining how her scheme worked.
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"They will come, I will present them to the wife, they're like, 'yes, I want them, not a problem, I'll be back in, I don't know, three weeks.' And they would leave and make me hold these girls for months," she explained.
"The payment, it's agreed by both parties, OK? This is the first initial payment for the total amount of $38,000. Now, let me calculate that real quick. So $38,000 minus $3,000," she continued, while using a calculator. "That's going to give us $35,000. And then the day of the wedding, you have to bring me, what? $12,000.
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"You and I are the ones in this contract, not nobody else. Because we don't want to get your wife and yourself into a...putting in paper about a fake marriage. You know what I mean? Does that make sense to you? Because if anything happened, we don't want them to have any proof that this was fake," she said.
Gonzalez also explained to the witness, who she believed to be an illegal immigrant, that Massachusetts was the best place to go for illegal immigrants because of its sanctuary state status.
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"Massachusetts is best place for you to be. That is a fact," Gonzalez said.
"You get health insurance. You get a lot of help as an immigrant here," she explained, adding, "Trump doesn't like this state because...the state defends us very much."
She also revealed that she stopped arranging the marriages around 2025 because of increased federal immigration enforcement.
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Gonzalez further told the witness that she owned multiple properties in the Dominican Republic, which she called "my country," and in Puerto Rico.
"Miss Gonzalez got rich off selling the American dream, all the while investing her money in another country," Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, told reporters during a Wednesday press conference announcing the scheme.
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While prosecutors described Gonzalez as the ringleader of the operation, authorities arrested four other co-conspirators involved in the scheme.
Fox News Digital's James Cirrone contributed to this report.
As violent riots grip France, British political leader Nigel Farage warned Americans against repeating what he described as Europe's mass immigration failures, arguing that years of unchecked migration have transformed European cities and fueled unrest that could eventually spread elsewhere.
"People like me who were warning about this years ago have sadly been proven right, but the problems are gonna be here for a very, very long time," Farage told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Please, please don't make the same level of mistakes that we have," he said in his message to Americans.
Violent riots have erupted across parts of Europe in recent weeks, particularly in France, with Farage pointing to years of mass migration and failed political leadership as key factors fueling the unrest. The Reform UK leader singled out Emmanuel Macron, arguing that the French president should have mobilized the military to confront the violence, after education protests spiraled into riots, destruction and theft.
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"Macron was asleep at the wheel, and it isn't just that he was at a concert," Farage said. "And whilst the French do have effective police forces, the scale of the uprising, I mean the mass looting, the mass looting and violence that took place in Paris was genuinely horrendous."
"Meloni's reaction was swifter and a better sign of leadership," Farage said, referring to the Italian leader deploying 500 military troops to Milan in response to recent riots. "But the problem is, for people like Macron, who have always said, any criticism of immigration, whether legal or illegal, makes you racist, they psychologically find it hard to face up to their own failures of policy."
Farage warned that the unrest he described in France and elsewhere in Europe could eventually erupt in Britain, pointing to demonstrations in London and questioning whether British leaders would respond more forcefully than Macron.
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"You know, my real worry is they can happen in this country too," Farage said. "We've got the same hard left here. We've the same hate mobs that march, chanting in the streets of London, from the river to the sea."
"I'm concerned that these things could happen here. And I wonder whether a British prime minister has got any more courage than President Macron in France," he added.
Farage contrasted Europe's failure to control its borders with President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in the United States.
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"Look, whatever you think of President Trump's current policies, one thing he has done, and he promised he'd do. He's closed the southern border," Farage said.
Trump vowed Tuesday to treat potential rioters in the U.S. "very rough," pointing to the unrest in France, he said at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, before being interrupted by a protestor in the crowd.
"They're crazy, these people. Look at that guy. He's a nutjob," Trump said, in reference to the protester.
He warned that he would crack down on potential threats, saying he would not allow similar unrest to take hold in the U.S.
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"That's what you witness over the last three or four days. You watch nutjobs like him in France ruining their country," Trump said. "We're not going to put up with it by the way."
"If a possible threat, which could happen, I hope you won't get angry if I treat them very, very rough, because that's what's going to happen. They're not going to destroy our country," he said.
On Tuesday, British counterterrorism police rearrested two men suspected of assisting Iranian intelligence in an alleged plot targeting RAF Fairford, a U.K. base used by U.S. bombers.
Authorities say Iranian state involvement is "highly likely," though no charges have been filed.
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Farage said he has foreshadowed such criminal acts, alleging that Iran has exploited illegal crossings of the English Channel to move operatives into Britain.
"I've called again and again for this to be declared a national security emergency. I have been ignored. If the Americans removing their bombers from RAF Fairford isn't enough warning. I don't know what is," he said.
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"We've just become so caught up over here in Europe and Britain with this human rights culture, which puts the interests, frankly, of the bad guys above the interests of the majority."
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) praised Somali migrants as the "CEOs of the future" and claimed that Somalis were being criticized because people see "the kind of economy and entrepreneurship" they are trying to build.
The post Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Praises Somali Migrants as ‘CEOs of the Future’ appeared first on Breitbart.
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