The Justice Gap for Unaccompanied Children in US Immigration Court: Rurality, Resources, and Client Characteristics as Determinants of Access to Counsel
Chiara Galli and Tatiana Padilla, Law & Social Inquiry (February 18, 2026)
A study of nearly 400,000 immigration court cases finds that unaccompanied minors’ access to legal representation is shaped not only by geography and resource availability but also by client characteristics like gender, age, nationality, and Indigeneity, highlighting deep inequities in who receives counsel in removal proceedings.
