Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, one of the only organizations that provides legal representation to noncitizen immigrants in Vermont, lost half its staff Tuesday, according to Jill Martin Diaz, the organization’s executive director. 

Since Donald Trump took office in January, an increasing number of people in Vermont have faced immigration enforcement actions from the federal government, including detainments and deportations, according to advocates and attorneys. Now, the capacity of one of their primary advocates has been vastly diminished. 

“I will not be able to take on a single new case for the rest of the year,” Martin Diaz said in an interview Wednesday. 

Specifically, federal funding from the Administration of Children and Families — a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — supported legal representation for minors who came into the U.S. unaccompanied. 

The money flowed to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, then to an organization called Acacia Center for Justice, and from there, to an organization called the Immigrant Justice Corps, which provided two fellows to the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. 

The Immigrant Justice Corps is a program that “funds talented new immigration attorneys and legal workers to do immigration case work at host organizations around the country,” Martin Diaz said. 

On Tuesday night, the Department of the Interior, which has an operational support role in some federal contracts, informed Acacia Center for Justice that they needed to immediately stop the Unaccompanied Children Program, according to a statement from the Acacia Center for Justice. 

Neither the Administration of Children and Families nor the Department of Interior immediately responded to VTDigger’s requests for comment. 

“Acacia’s Unaccompanied Children Program provides legal representation to over 26,000 children in and released from Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, protecting children from trafficking, abuse and exploitation, helping immigration courts run smoother, and ensuring a modicum of due process, so that children navigating the immigration system alone understand their rights and legal obligations,” Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, said in a statement posted to the organization’s website.

Both of the fellows at Vermont Asylum Assistance Project were representing unaccompanied minors, as well as a broader set of immigration cases, according to Martin Diaz. 

In total, the organization’s staff included three attorneys working toward their law licenses and Martin Diaz, who is licensed and supervises the others. 

The news hit hours after Martin Diaz testified before lawmakers in the House Judiciary Committee where they told lawmakers the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project has recently been too strapped to meet the rising need for their services.