EXCLUSIVE
Yamirla Chavez’s last two months at the Refugee & Immigrant Center for Education & Legal Services, or RAICES, are a blur to her now.
She’d been a senior staff attorney for the nonprofit organization’s Unaccompanied Children’s Program, fighting in court on behalf of children who fled violence and poverty in other countries to start new lives in the United States.
“I was incredibly blown away by the mission,” she said. “I was just trying to get my foot in the door and then move on, but five to six years later it turned out to be a job that I didn’t want to leave.”
Then in late March, RAICES told her that she and 157 of her colleagues would lose their jobs. The Trump administration had canceled their funding. Chavez was devastated at the news. But she was even more devastated by the timeline.
She and her colleagues had 60 days to wind down their case loads. For Chavez, that meant closing more than one case a day. She attempted to meet with each of her child clients to explain that she could no longer represent them in their fight to stay in the country.
Some were as young as 9, but many were on the precipice of turning 18 and entering the adult immigration system.
Most did not have family in the U.S. They came from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador fleeing the clutches of powerful gangs. A small contingent of her clients fled because they identified as LGBTQ+ and faced violence and discrimination in their home countries. Others were the victims of labor trafficking.
Many were still in detention shelters in San Antonio.
“Wrapping everything up in two months was ludicrous,” Chavez said.
The stakes were incredibly high for her clients. If a child missed a response to the court or the government, it could have grievous effects on the child’s ability to stay in the country. Now they had to navigate finding a new attorney, too.
Chavez, now 34, said she filed motions with immigration courts to get the children special immigrant juvenile visas — a pathway to a green card given to children who are the victims of abuse or neglect — and other types of relief from deportation. She took meticulous notes for each case, hoping someone would take them over. She and her colleagues worked 12, 14, 16- hour days, seven days a week, she said. She lost her appetite and eventually stopped eating. Showers were a thing of the past. Chavez, who once served in the U.S. Army, said she would rather do basic training over again than relive those last months at RAICES.
Chavez’s bosses told her there was no more money to support the children’s program: The Trump administration had slashed it, so what was there to do?
But that wasn’t true, she said.
Eleven other impacted nonprofits sued the administration, and a federal judge issued a restraining order followed by a preliminary injunction until the case was resolved, restoring the funding.
In all, funding was paused for two weeks.
“It just sucks that after going through all of that — the funding was there. The contract was offered and RAICES denied it — they rejected it,” Chavez said.
RAICES chose to continue with its planned layoffs despite the injunction, and to end its subcontract with the Acacia Center for Justice, the nonprofit that distributed the government contract.
Through interviews with more than a dozen former employees and the review of internal documents and court records, The Barbed Wire found:
- After funding was restored, RAICES voluntarily declined the $19.5 million annual contract from the federal government, which accounted for roughly half of the organization’s more than $43 million budget in 2024.
- More than 1,000 youth across Texas were affected by the decision to effectively end the children’s program, according to a recording of a February staff meeting.
- RAICES had child clients sign acknowledgements that the organization’s attorneys were withdrawing from their cases because of a loss of funding that was “beyond the control of RAICES,” even after a court order that restored the funding.
- After the funding was restored, RAICES falsely represented the same explanation to employees and immigration courts, including in court motions into November of this year.
- Many former employees said they felt misled by executives at the organization about the program shuttering and some said they felt compelled to mislead their own clients. Such representations, mandated by RAICES directors, could have violated Texas’ legal ethics code.
RAICES rose to national prominence during President Donald Trump’s first term with a reputation for protecting children from deportation — and raised record-setting amounts of money with that reputation in 2018.
Trump’s second term has been marked by mass deportations and attacks on immigrant communities. His Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, quickly targeted asylum, refugee, and migration programs. It attempted to cut funding to programs like RAICES’ Unaccompanied Children’s Program in February — a move advocates called a violation of the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which dictates that children have access to lawyers “to the greatest degree practicable.”
When The Barbed Wire requested an interview about the end of RAICES’ Children’s Program, RAICES declined.
“They just left all those minors,” said Nadia Perez, a former legal assistant in RAICES’ San Antonio office. “Just dropped them like it was nothing.”
“This year has been one of extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances for not only service recipients but also service providers in the humanitarian aid landscape,” Faisal Al-Jubari, RAICES’ vice president of external communications, wrote in an email.
“RAICES underwent a reduction in force earlier this year resulting from federal subcontracts and subgrants impacted by the current administration, including funding for unaccompanied children’s services that yielded an eight-figure funding gap for the organization,” he continued.
Al-Jubari did not respond to questions about why RAICES declined the $19.5 million contract, why it continued to blame government cuts after funding had been restored, or allegations that it abandoned or misled child clients.
In a subsequent email, Al-Jubari wrote: “Skepticism regarding the administration’s intentions for unaccompanied children’s legal aid was and remains well-founded, following its multiple attempts to subvert lawful obligations.”
Al-Jubari also noted that the Acacia Center for Justice didn’t communicate terms and conditions of the renewed, short-term contract before expecting legal service providers to continue their work.
Acacia Center executive director Shaina Aber said in an interview earlier this year that RAICES didn’t want to endure the economic uncertainty of the current administration’s attacks on their funding.
“There could be legitimate operational reasons for winding down this program early,” said Laurie Styron, CEO of CharityWatch, a nonprofit watchdog.
If the organization sees that it is in for a protracted fight with the Trump administration — and even if the contract is renewed now, it may not be later — that could be a legitimate reason to bow out early, according to Styron.
The unaccompanied minor program was the second to see layoffs this year. RAICES let go 60 others who worked with the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), after those contracts were cancelled in February. USRAP funding is also in litigation.
“But from a gut check perspective, it is unusual for a nonprofit to leave this much money on the table,” Styron concluded.
A source with knowledge said RAICES was one of as few as two legal service providers that ended their Acacia contracts rather than continue.
Many of the former employees praise their former colleagues and those who continue at RAICES for their passion for the work, and said they believe if the situation had been explained, staff would have tried to make it work even with the uncertainty.
“We probably would have said ‘It’s ok — at least we can still have a job for now and we can still provide services for the kids and they’re not going to be by themselves,” said Ana Del Rio, a former legal assistant at RAICES. “But they didn’t want to deal with it.”
“They just left all those minors,” said Nadia Perez, a former legal assistant in RAICES’ San Antonio office. “Just dropped them like it was nothing.”
The Rise of RAICES
RAICES was founded in San Antonio in 1986 and for years was focused on social services for immigrant families. The organization pivoted towards legal representation when John Blatz arrived in 1990. His wife had founded the organization, and the two of them had worked in immigration services for years. For the next two decades RAICES was a small legal operator — at times it was just Blatz.
“I didn’t want to take government money,” Blatz said.
It wasn’t until 2008, when attorney Jonathan Ryan joined the nonprofit as CEO and convinced Blatz to take government money, that the organization started growing quickly.
“We absolutely believe that no child…should ever go to court by themselves.”
In 2014, a massive surge of people fleeing violence in Honduras and El Salvador at the southern border — including masses of unaccompanied children — catapulted the nonprofit legal service provider into the national spotlight. Its name would soon grace the pages of multiple national news publications and bring them to Washington, D.C. to testify at congressional hearings.
The group’s reach grew across Texas along with its budget. It went from two offices helping detained children in 2009 to five in 2014 then six in 2018, working in a dozen or more detention shelters across the state.
The organization exploded in growth after the first Trump administration started separating parents from their children at the border. Images of kids in cages captured the national consciousness and money poured into the organizations that served them.
RAICES was a leading beneficiary.
In 2018, a California couple’s Facebook fundraiser intending to raise $1,500 for the nonprofit instead netted $20 million, shattering records. Millions of dollars more poured in after. The organization went from a budget of less than $8 million a year in 2017 to one of more than $52 million a year in 2018.
Mayra Jimenez, then-director of the Unaccompanied Children’s Program, gave thanks for the donations in 2018, publicizing one of the organization’s tenets: “We absolutely believe that no child…should ever go to court by themselves,” she said.
“I don’t think it was lofty rhetoric,” said Sara Valdes, a former co-director of the Children’s Program, of the pledge to not abandon children in court. “That was real.”
Valdes said the organization took risks back then, bucked authorities. But that changed when leadership did.
Jimenez, who didn’t comment for this story, moved to another refugee serving agency in 2022. Former CEO Jonathan Ryan was forced out in 2021 after a period of intense growth, internal dissent over spending priorities, and battles with his board.
Several former employees who spoke with The Barbed Wire pointed to this time period as pivotal. Employees said the board of directors committed to a national search for a new CEO through a third-party organization. Instead, the RAICES union said the board hired its own former chair, Dolores Schroeder, to run the organization in April 2022.
The RAICES union staged a “sick out,” with 150 members walking off the job to protest the board’s maneuvers. They were highly critical of the selection of Schroeder, a real estate attorney with no experience practicing immigration law. At the time, the board said it was prioritizing fiscal responsibility and Schroeder’s ability to reign in spending.
Schroeder earned more than $250,000 for the remainder of 2022. Her compensation was more than $430,000 a year in 2023, according to IRS tax forms. That wage put Schroeder in rarified air for a nonprofit leader in San Antonio — where the median household income was $62,917 — another point of contention for employees.
After Schroerder’s appointment, the organization restructured, adding a layer of directors between its C-suite and its rank and file, according to employees. Unlike Ryan, who often held monthly and quarterly all-staff meetings, there were none from Schroeder. Communications between Schroeder and staff were few and far between in person or via staff-wide emails, former staff said. Many spoke of the “corporatization” of the culture.
“The passion went out when Jonathan went out,” Blatz said. “But he was not popular when he left. They [employees] felt he was getting perks that they were not getting. Money creates problems. When I was there, there was no money, so there was no problem.”
Blatz, who had continued to work as an attorney for RAICES after leaving leadership, retired in the weeks after Schroeder was made CEO.
Schroeder resigned from RAICES in December, shortly after The Barbed Wire reached out for an interview. Schroeder said in an email to staff that her contract had been up at the beginning of 2025, but she stayed on due to the turbulent developments from the Trump administration.
‘Do Not Say Anything’
Congress has funded legal representation for unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings for more than a decade. The most recent appropriation was for $5 billion through at least Sept. 30, 2027.
But the Trump administration has attempted to subvert it, starting in February under DOGE. In a Feb. 19 staff meeting, RAICES supervisors told their attorneys to assess where their cases were in the process, according to a recording reviewed by The Barbed Wire.
After the second attempt in late March, attorneys say they were told to break their cases down by need and begin withdrawing from the ones that needed little or no assistance.
Legal assistants were told to not discuss the future plans of the organization with their counterparts in detention shelters, where RAICES had been conducting “Know Your Rights” presentations and maintaining relationships with children. All that stopped.
“RAICES pretty much told us ‘do not do anything,’” said Ana Del Rio, a former RAICES legal assistant. “‘Do not talk to anyone, do not say anything.’”
Del Rio would later quit, citing the workplace atmosphere and the inability to help children.
An online manual was distributed to staff attorneys mandating how they should close or transfer their cases. Links to pre-approved template motions for courts and acknowledgement letters for clients were included. The letters all cited the government funding cuts as the reason for the end of their representation.
But when other nonprofit subcontractors sued the Trump administration, staff started asking questions about whether RAICES would forgo layoffs until the outcome was certain, said Chavez. They got few responses.
When Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a nationwide injunction against the government, restoring the funding pending the outcome of the litigation on April 29, some RAICES attorneys questioned the language the organization was using to describe why they were ending their representation to kids.
“Due to the recent termination of federal contracts and the subsequent loss of funding for RAICES, it has become unreasonable and impractical for RAICES to continue providing legal representation in my case,” reads one document reviewed byThe Barbed Wire.
“It felt like we were lying,” said Yamirla Chavez. “The minute I found out, I modified that closing letter… ‘What are you gonna do fire me?’”
These were the documents attorneys said they were mandated to use. But some felt it was misleading. One attorney called the State Bar ethics hotline only to be told they were getting many calls from RAICES staff. Chavez said she was going to call, but had heard from colleagues that they already had.
“I think it was very untruthful and unethical the way that they forced us or guided us to tell our clients that we no longer had the funds to continue the service to them,” said M. Vaneza Alvarado, a former senior staff attorney. “When in fact, it was the decision of RAICES to shut down the program despite the availability of funds.”
RAICES descriptions in financial audits of the nonprofit appear more transparent than those given to the court: “RAICES did not renew the Unaccompanied Children’s Program with the federal government due to a termination for convenience notice received on March 21, 2025. The annual value of this contract was approximately $19.5 million,” reads an audit on its website.
“Generally speaking you shouldn’t lie to your clients about things. That’s pretty clear,” said Bob Schuwerk, a former professor specializing in legal ethics at the University of Houston Law School.
A termination of convenience is the right to cancel a contract, often by the federal government, without being in breach of contract. The statement spells out that they received the March 21 notification but then voluntarily did not renew it when funding was restored.
When it became clear that funding would continue, some staff pushed back on the language being used, asking for updated documents. None were provided, according to multiple former staff.
“There were a couple times where we would try to voice our concern or pushback — and the higher ups would say, ‘Ok, we’ll get back to you on it.’ And they would never get back to us,” said Karen Hernandez, a former legal assistant at RAICES in San Antonio.
Some declined to use the language. Most communicated directly with their clients that they were being let go, and that was the reason they were unable to continue as their attorneys. Some modified the templates, despite directives not to.
“It felt like we were lying,” said Yamirla Chavez. “The minute I found out, I modified that closing letter… ‘What are you gonna do fire me?’”
But some didn’t know until after they had left the organization that the funding had been restored, and now feel like they were compelled to mislead their clients. The language could be a violation of state legal ethics rules for attorneys, said an expert.
“Generally speaking you shouldn’t lie to your clients about things. That’s pretty clear,” said Bob Schuwerk, a former professor specializing in legal ethics at the University of Houston Law School.
If lawyers knew they were making untrue claims to their clients, they could violate ethics rules around candor, said Shuwerk. If they didn’t know, but their supervisors who are lawyers knew, those violations fall on supervisors — including the CEO if they practice law. The same is true if nonattorney staff like legal assistants are being directed by an attorney to make the representations.
In an email, Faisal Al-Jubari, RAICES’ communications vice president, said that for all actions regarding their unaccompanied children’s services, “RAICES established internal guidelines leveraging extensive research and advisement from the Texas Center for Legal Ethics, Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, American Bar Association, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Executive Office for Immigration Review Immigration Court Practice Manual.” Al-Jubari did not answer follow-up questions on when or how those organizations were consulted.
The organization was also making the claims in motions to courts. The representations were also being made in person in immigration courts to judges. Attorneys for RAICES have for months continued to show up to these court dockets to withdraw from cases, citing the cuts to federal funding.
“Due to the recent elimination of funding for the program under which the Respondent was receiving legal assistance, counsel is no longer able to provide representation in this matter. Recently, the Trump administration notified the termination of the unaccompanied children program,” reads a template letter provided to The Barbed Wire that RAICES asked an attorney to file in immigration court this November.
Schuwerk called the descriptions in the federal motion inaccurate because funding had been restored.
“If they made those statements to the court that’s a whole other (potential) violation,” he said.
The potential penalties for such an action could be severe, including a suspended law license. But beyond that, the damage done to children’s cases. Immigration laws are very difficult to understand even for English speaking attorneys. They aren’t intended to be navigated by children.
“I would think that basically that lawyers in positions of knowing what’s going on are probably liable for just about all the trainwrecks that happened,” said Schuwerk “It’s certainly foreseeable that the clients are going to suffer hardships that they won’t be able to mitigate.”
The Fallout
On the final day of M. Vaneza Alvarado’s time with RAICES she was still struggling to find other attorneys for about half of her more than 60 clients. She knew she wasn’t going to make it but she hoped to keep trying. But at the end of business both her RAICES-issued laptop and phone stopped working. Her email was shut down.
“There wasn’t even an opportunity to say, ‘Hey I wasn’t able to get to this client, like I really need this client to be taken care of.’ There was nobody.”
It was just another betrayal — she said — from an organization she strived to help and it wouldn’t be the last. Months later she heard the cases she was told RAICES would retain to help children were being left without any representation.
“They’re fighting against an administration and the Department of Homeland Security who have become 100 times more aggressive than they were during the first administration of Trump,” she said.
She choked up speaking about the impact on her former clients.
In emails to The Barbed Wire, RAICES claimed to still be representing some children, saying the organization has “approximately 2,500 open immigration legal cases.” It is unclear what that representation looks like. Former attorneys say that RAICES attorneys are simply showing up to withdraw from cases. Chavez said she had been contacted by desperate former clients who said no RAICES attorney had appeared.
One former RAICES client, Miguel Angel Otoniel, traveled to the U.S. when he was 16 from Guatemala. When he turned 18, the government tried to deport him despite being in proceedings for a visa to stay in the country. Without an attorney, Otoniel failed to file all the proper documentation in the case. An immigration court judge suspended the deportation proceedings despite the lack of full documentation. An appeals court disagreed.
“We otherwise have no way of knowing whether the respondent is subject to a juvenile court order that satisfies the regulatory requirements,” read the ruling. The court also found the length of time to establish his status as a reason to overrule the lower court, making it unclear if an attorney would have made a difference.
“The way it [RAICES] was closed down left a lot of people without representation who thought they had it,” said Hannah Eash-Gates. “And it left a big legal services gap.”
She and a few other former RAICES alumni started RISE, For Immigrants, another legal service provider. It’s been picking up clients left behind by RAICES. Advokato, another nonprofit formed by former RAICES employees, took over the subcontract from Acacia to represent children in several San Antonio detention shelters and foster care.
Thinking back now, Yamirla Chavez gets emotional about the kids she once served.
During those last weeks she thinks she lost 15 pounds. There was stress in her relationship, as her partner said they didn’t understand her devotion to an organization that clearly didn’t value her.
But it wasn’t for them.
“Not once did I feel like I was working for RAICES — it was just the vehicle that got me into the work with the kids,” she later said.
She spoke with a handful of old clients recently and was again overwhelmed by emotions. She has avoided looking up what happened to the rest of her former clients.
“I don’t think I could handle it, to check and find a removal order. Or being detained,” she said. “I think it could break me, emotionally.”
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