Lawmakers, advocates allege Chicago immigration court violated due process for minors handed removal orders

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and local advocates sounded the alarm Wednesday over systemic due process violations at Chicago's downtown immigration court, calling a strategy to speed up their cases and issue deportation orders to unaccompanied minors a "mockery of the justice system."

Durbin, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, and state leaders spoke out after attending a morning hearing, where they and courtroom advocates witnessed six minors handed removal orders.

“These kids, some as young as 12 years old are now being deported from the United States," Durbin said. “It's happening right here in the city of Chicago in the Loop. This is not what America is all about."

Quigley, a former defense attorney, echoed the senator’s outrage.

"What I saw today—and I practiced criminal defense for 17 years right here in Cook County—was a mockery of the justice system," Quigley said.

Advocates say since June they’ve seen a surge in cases involving unaccompanied children being called to show up to immigration court. Many of these minors have a pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status which is a unique legal pathway created by Congress to protect children without legal status who have survived severe trauma at home. Though the program faces huge backlogs.

This strategy is part of ongoing shifting policies by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. For months, the agency has been speeding up asylum cases, reshuffling and scheduling mass hearings and issuing far more removal orders.

In a written statement a DOJ spokesperson said: “The Biden Administration allowed millions of unvetted aliens into our communities and intentionally turned a blind eye to hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied alien children in need of care. Reducing the immigration court backlog remains one of the highest priorities for this administration.”

But immigration advocates argue that the Trump administration’s fast-tracked focus on backlog statistics ignores the due process these minors are entitled to under the law.

“There are children in the United States alone, with no family here caring for them,” said Laura Smith, executive director of the Children’s Legal Center, which represents children in immigration custody. “These children fled to the U.S. seeking protection from horrors no child should endure—children who have been kidnapped, whose parents have been killed, or who have been completely abandoned.”

Laura Smith Executive of the Children’s Legal Center, joined other elected officials, legal service providers, and advocates to discuss, due process violations currently targeting unaccompanied immigrant children at the Chicago Immigration Court at a press conference at the National Immigrant Justice Center in downtown Chicago on Aug. 26, 2026.

Manuel Martinez/WBEZ

The six children ordered removed Wednesday range in age from 12 to 17, despite their applications for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status still pending, according to legal advocates.

In July, two were ordered removed that had approved this special status.

Smith says this move by the government is new. She explains that typically minors who are in the process of applying for a special immigrant juvenile status are shielded from removal orders.

Smith and other advocates with the National Immigrant Justice Center say the federal government is forcing children to appear in court every two weeks instead of a few times a year. Many of these minors are currently held in federal custody by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, living in various government facilities and long-term foster care homes.

“When we have had special immigrant juvenile status, it has meant termination of removal proceedings, and that the child gets to apply for residency, Smith said. “And the reason it's been that way the entire time that it's existed is because that is the law.”

Advocates say they plan to appeal the fast-tracked removal orders to the Board of Immigration Appeals. A loss there would trigger a final deportation order. Smith says attorneys will then prepare an emergency appeal to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause removals.

Blasting recent federal programs to support unaccompanied minors, including legal aid, advocates and lawmakers say they want the Trump administration to enforce existing protections. They argue federal statutes explicitly guarantee children access to a lawyer, a fair hearing outside a high-stakes deportation track, and a clear path to release.

They are asking the federal government to abide by current laws already passed by Congress and the states.

Adriana Cardona-Maguigad covers immigration for WBEZ. Follow her on X @AdrianaCardMag .