Immigration: immigrant youth: access to legal counsel.

Assembly Member Bonta, joined by a broad group of coauthors, advances a measure to create a statewide program that provides legal counsel to immigrant youth in California, with funding decisions conditioned on the state budget. The core change would establish a new statutory pathway to ensure access to professional legal representation for immigrant youth, governed by a funding-and-contracting framework that sits within the Welfare and Institutions Code.

Key mechanisms establish who can provide the counsel and when it is available. The department would fund and contract for legal services through either qualified nonprofit legal services organizations that meet established experience in removal proceedings and asylum work, or through a county public defender’s office that satisfies specific immigration-law qualifications, including attorney experience with asylum, T-Visa, U-Visa, or SIJS cases, prior representation of minors, and practitioner trainings. Access to counsel would begin when a youth is designated as unaccompanied by a federal or state agency or identified by an immigration attorney, and could be applied in state court proceedings or in related filings for immigration remedies and proceedings in federal processes, subject to the youth not having independent counsel. If a youth has been assigned counsel before turning 18, ongoing access to state-provided counsel would continue through the pendency of the proceedings. The bill defines immigrant youth as individuals under 18 who lack lawful status and either arrived in the United States without a parent or guardian or lack available parental or guardian support.

Funding allocation and program scope are tied to state resources and federal funding dynamics. The department would allocate funding for these purposes and consider whether federal funding has been made available and dispersed to relevant organizations in the state when determining contract amounts and distribution. Priority would be given to qualified nonprofits described in existing law that are ineligible for federal funds or that have unmet needs despite federal assistance. The department may also fund social work services contracted by qualified nonprofit providers to assist immigrant youth, creating a broader support framework alongside legal representation. The program envisions coordination with the existing nonprofit legal-services framework serving unaccompanied minors transferred to federal custody, while expanding eligibility to immigrant youth more generally and adding the option for county public defenders to participate under specified conditions.

Implementation and governance considerations frame how the new regime would operate within current statutes. The department would administer funding, contracting, and oversight for the program, with the PD office pathway offering potential parity if the county office meets the specified criteria and any additional requirements the department may impose. Providers would be required to maintain adequate malpractice insurance and to indemnify the state against claims arising from the services, as part of contract risk management. The measure explicitly ties the program to the availability of state funding, and it notes the potential influence of federal funding on allocations, thereby situating the initiative within broader intergovernmental and budgetary dynamics.