Abby Sandoval has pink pigtails. She wears a popstar T-shirt. And she has no idea what’s going on.

She’s being spoken to by an immigration judge in Fairfax County. A translator relays the message to her through headphones as she stares past him.

She’s 7 years old, swinging her legs beneath the table. Her feet can't touch the ground.

The United States is seeking to remove Sandoval from the country. Each year, it pursues deportation against thousands of immigrant children, many of whom arrived as unaccompanied minors. The Times-Dispatch sat in on a day of juvenile immigration proceedings in Virginia’s immigration court in Annandale, where cases are heard for children from around the commonwealth.

From the outside, Virginia's immigration courts look like any other office building.

Today, children attend hearings from Roanoke, Centreville, Virginia Beach and Henrico. Nearly all emigrated from Spanish-speaking countries.

People are also reading…

There is Edith Castro, an 18-year-old who has been trying to find a lawyer on her own. She arrived here last April. The government is trying to return her to Bolivia, but Castro says that Brazil is the only country in which she would feel safe.

There is Diego Raymondo, who is 15 years old. He is here with his father, who says their family can’t afford an attorney.

“Do you fear for your son if he were to go back to Guatemala?” the judge asks. His father says he would.

There is Candalenia Ramos, who is 11 years old. Seated beside Candalenia is her mother, Donya Ramos, who tells the judge that the family hasn't found a lawyer, although not for lack of trying.

“I’ve been trying to call but no one picks up,” she says through a translator.

Immigration Judge Jason Braun appears sympathetic. But the case requires motion. Braun says that he will move closer towards a removal for her daughter if the family doesn’t lock down a lawyer by the end of the year.

Immigration proceedings in Virginia take place in a benign-looking office building in this suburb of Fairfax County. There’s no signage on the outside, and the inside is similarly sparse: The walls are stark white, plastered with signs encouraging “self-deportation.” Photographs are not allowed.

On Thursday, Braun is the designated judge hearing juvenile cases. His courtroom is similarly bare, with the exception of two baskets full of children’s books. The books went untouched throughout the day’s proceedings.

In waves, Braun welcomes in a new batch of families and children. Across from the children sits a lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security, whose job it is to prod cases forward as fast as the law will allow.

Today, the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security is Courtney Lutz. Lutz is often tasked to repeat a boilerplate line: That the government opposes any continuance in the children’s cases.

Even if they barely understand proceedings, some immigrant children take their cases seriously. One boy, Marlin Lopez, who recently turned 18, arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor. He’s going to school while living with his brother in Fairfax County.

Braun asks how Lopez arrived in court today. “By myself,” Lopez replied in Spanish. He says that his lawyer was supposed to appear in court today, but he hasn’t shown up.

Marlin’s case, like many others, is continued for several months because he hasn’t been able to find an attorney. Braun openly acknowledges the problem.

“These agencies don’t pick up the phone,” said Braun. “You need to keep calling, leave a message, and then call again in a few days.”

If they are lucky, children do find attorneys to guide them through the process – whether it be to file for asylum or other special protections available to minors.

Brian Bucerto is among them, applying for a special visa protection available only to juveniles. If he’s successful, he can then apply for a green card, which might not become available for years.

Bucerto crossed the border as a 13-year-old. He's 17 now attending his first court proceeding, said his lawyer, Antonio Ochoa.

“They registered him at the border and then didn’t tell him to be in court until four years later,” said Ochoa.

Ochoa said it was lucky that Bucerto found a lawyer before he turned 18, when he would age out of protections available for children.

“These are children that have been abandoned,” said Ochoa. “They’ve made a dangerous, international journey, and they’re crossing by themselves.”

Immigration Lawyer Antonio Ochoa.

An industry of nonprofit law firms exists to guide those efforts. Beleaguered and overworked as they may be, these lawyers appear to be essential. Without them, proceedings meander on for months before judges who are hesitant to try children without any ability to advocate for themselves.

That’s part of the reason why the federal government has paid for their lawyers. In 2008, Congress passed legislation aimed at fighting human trafficking. The law calls on the government to ensure that minors have lawyers to “the greatest extent practicable.”

But in March, the Trump administration signaled it would no longer foot the bill for children's legal defense. In a memo, the administration told more than 100 nonprofits to stop representing migrant children. It also cancelled a 5-year contract that would have funded those firms.

Like many other of Trump’s initiatives to reshape the government, the move elicited a swift backlash. Immigrant advocates sued the administration in court, alleging that the funding cut was violating an act of Congress.

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said the funding cut was the biggest attack on immigrant children since Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration crackdown in 2017, which resulted in the forcible separation of immigrant families and their children.

“We’re talking about the loss of attorneys and advocates for tens of thousands of children across the country,” said Lukens.

Former immigration judges also critiqued the move, warning that without lawyers, proceedings would grind to a halt.

“Even ICE attorneys, the so-called prosecutors in these cases, were grateful to these attorneys in court because it helped move the hearings along and reach a conclusion more quickly,” said Jennie Giambastiani, a former immigration judge who presided over courts between 2002 and 2019.

Giambastiani called the cuts a continuation of Trump’s family separation agenda.

Lawyers for the Trump administration say that the funding needed to be paused while the program was reviewed for “fraud, abuse, and duplication.” They have also argued that the 2008 law is discretionary, and doesn’t require that the government pay for children to have legal counsel.

The government simply cancelled a contract, a power which is within its right, their lawyers said. The lawyers cite a recent victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the court ruled that it was legal for the administration to abruptly end grants related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The case was heard by a federal court in Northern California, where U.S. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin found that a temporary block on the cut “served the public interest.” Under the order, the federal agencies are temporarily prohibited from stopping the flow of funds to children’s pro-bono lawyers.

The administration has pushed for that restraining order to be repealed. And on Monday, the administration announced it would ask a higher appeals court to overrule Martinez-Olguin’s decision.

Last year, over 30,000 unaccompanied minors were processed in courtrooms like these across the country, according to data from the Department of Justice. That total doesn’t encompass the totality of juvenile proceedings, as many children plead their cases with a caregiver or parent.

Despite the temporary pause, law firms say the funding cut has already pulled lawyers away from cases. And if it ends in the administration’s favor, the situation could deteriorate, said Dominique Poirier, director of legal services with the pro-bono firm Just Neighbors.

“I’d ask you to try and visualize a five- or six-year-old trying to represent themselves in court. Sitting at a big table by themselves, in front of a judge in a black robe and next to an attorney who’s trying to deport them,” said Poirier.

Poirier's firm specializes in humanitarian cases. Currently, the firm's lawyers juggle up to 100 cases at a time, Poirier said.

“That is our present-day scenario. The government has ceased funding legal representation for unaccompanied children. So that’s what it’s going to look like.”