Of Course It’s Motherfucking Texas (The Daily Whatever Press)—On Monday, in an American courtroom, a thirteen-year-old boy had to be his own fucking lawyer, and Donald Trump’s government planned it that way.
His name is Angel. He’s from Honduras. He stood before a federal immigration judge in Harlingen, Texas, with no lawyer, no advocate, and no adult in his corner, and argued that he should be allowed to stay in the country where his mother lives. Across the room sat the government’s lawyer, because the government always brings one. That’s the matchup Trump built: a trained federal attorney on one side, a middle schooler on the other, and a judge in between keeping score.
Choose Your Own Deportation
Angel told the judge his mom and almost his entire family are here, and that Honduras isn’t safe for him. The judge wasn’t persuaded and offered him a choice: “Would you like to request voluntary departure, or should I issue a removal order?”
Hahahaha. Wut?
Gen X will recognize the format. It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure book where every page ends with you on a plane being deported away from everyone you love. Voluntary departure means leaving on your own, with no formal deportation on your record. A removal order is an official deportation, and it generally bars you from coming back for ten years. Grown adults with law degrees agonize over that call. Angel got it as a pop quiz. If it pleases the court, may I remind you that Angel is THIRTEEN goddamned years old?
He started crying. “I have no one,” he said. “I have nothing.” The judge ordered him deported and gave him a deadline to appeal—which he also gets to do by himself, because apparently the paperwork is the hardest homework any eighth-grader has ever been assigned which is part of the punishment.
Why a Kid Has to Be His Own Lawyer
Most Americans assume everyone in court gets a lawyer. That idea comes from Gideon v. Wainwright, the 1963 Supreme Court case that guaranteed a free lawyer to anyone charged with a crime who can’t afford one. Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter accused of breaking into a Florida pool hall, got one. But Gideon covers criminal court. Immigration court is civil court, so the right doesn’t apply—not to adults, and not to children. Courts have not forced the government to provide one, even for kids.
Congress saw that hole and tried to patch it. In 2008, a bipartisan anti-trafficking law signed by George W. Bush told the Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of children who cross the border alone, to make sure those kids have lawyers “to the greatest extent practicable.” Pure Schoolhouse Rock: a bill became a law, and the law said help the children.
For years, that help came through a federal contract with a nonprofit called the Acacia Center for Justice—two hundred million dollars a year, paying about a hundred legal groups to represent more than twenty thousand children.
How to Kill a Law Without Repealing It
Trump’s people hated that contract on sight. In February 2025, they ordered the lawyers to stop working, then reversed themselves three days later when the public lost its shit. In March, they cut off nearly all the legal services. A federal judge blocked that in April.
So they did the chickenshit thing and waited. When the Acacia contract expired in July 2026, they let it die and replaced it with an emergency contract worth up to twenty million dollars. One-tenth of the money! Same kids. Picture a deputy assistant somewhere at HHS clicking to a slide titled “Efficiencies: $180 Million Saved” while the room politely applauds. (That’s a bit. The math isn’t.)
The results landed in Harlingen. CNN counted twenty-five children in that courtroom. Fifteen had no lawyer. Children as young as two and three now face immigration judges this way. Two. Fucking. Years. Old. Kids who can’t tie their shoes are expected to go toe-to-toe with federal government lawyers.
When I was two I thought my magic blankie was ACTUALLY MAGIC.
This is a policy, not an accident, and the numbers prove it. According to Americans for Immigrant Justice, nine out of ten children without a lawyer get ordered deported, while kids with lawyers are five times more likely to win protection. Trump’s people know those numbers. That’s the whole goddamn point. They didn’t repeal the 2008 law. They didn’t win a vote. They took the lawyers away and let the children lose. Deportation by budget line.
The “Intends” Defense
And now the bullshit cherry on top. An HHS spokesperson says the refugee office “intends every child in its custody to have counsel.”
Intends. Trump’s HHS cut the money that pays for those lawyers, and now it wants credit for its intentions. That’s an arsonist calling a press conference to announce he intends for your house to stay cozy. This year’s Golden Gaslight Award goes to that sentence, and it isn’t close. Take a bow, you cowards.
In 1963, the United States decided that a drifter accused of breaking into a pool hall deserved a lawyer. In 2026, a thirteen-year-old facing exile from his own mother got a choice between two ways out of the country.
Angel told the judge he has no one. Trump’s government spent almost two years making sure he was right.
Thanks for reading!
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Nothing civil about immigration court - what our government is doing to these people, especially to these children, is nothing short of criminal 🤬🤬🤬
This is purely evil. I can’t believe this regime claims to be Christian.