Trump-linked law firm to get $150 million no-bid contract to represent migrant children

By Ruth Behrens · Reporting from Newell, Iowa · August 6, 2026

I’ve spent my life counting things that matter—the bushels in a silo, the hours it takes to get a piece of ground to pass from one generation to the next, the dwindling number of…

The Cost of Trusting Private Interests with Public Due Process

I’ve spent my life counting things that matter—the bushels in a silo, the hours it takes to get a piece of ground to pass from one generation to the next, the dwindling number of kids who still attend confirmation class at the church. These are costs you can measure on a basis chart, and they always tell a clearer story than any federal budget report.

What I read today—what washingtonpost.com reported, what apnews.com detailed—is a transaction that makes my stomach clench. A small Texas law firm, the Burke Law Group, is set to receive a $150 million no-bid contract from the Trump administration to represent unaccompanied migrant children in their immigration court proceedings. This isn't just about money; it’s about who gets to define justice when the stakes are life and death.

The details are troubling enough: this massive single-source cooperative agreement, awarded without a competitive bidding process, goes to a firm whose founder has deep ties to previous administrations. And while the contract is meant to provide "legal orientation, legal consultation, and attorney-of-record representation services," the reporting from npr.org makes it painfully clear that this award only covers about 1,800 children currently housed in government shelters. It leaves a massive gap for the roughly 22,000 children who are living outside the system with sponsors, relying on family and community—the very people Main Street counts on when the big institutions fail.

When Political Connections Replace Due Process

The pattern here is too clear to ignore. We have a government agency tasked with protecting profoundly vulnerable populations awarding a staggering sum of money to a politically connected private entity, while simultaneously creating gaps in service coverage that leave thousands unprotected.

Legal aid groups are sounding the alarm bells, and they should be heard. Michael Lukens, head of the Amica Center, called the sole-source contract “upsetting and shocking,” warning that it forebodes a situation where children will receive "no meaningful due process." This isn't hyperbole; this is what happens when profit motives are allowed to dictate fundamental rights.

The history books—and frankly, the common sense of any person who has seen a payroll run dry or a harvest fail—teach us that when political power meets unregulated private capital, the result is always exploitation. We don’t need to look far back in time to see this mechanism at work. The Whiskey Ring, which flourished during the Gilded Age, was an American scandal built on exactly this premise: politically connected interests exploiting state regulatory processes and public trust for massive financial gain.

The shared mechanism—the use of official government authority to funnel money from the taxpaying public to a select few private benefactors who have deep political ties—is identical. The only difference is that back then it was whiskey taxes, and today it’s legal representation for children fleeing violence and abuse.

A System Built on Cronyism, Not Care

The people closest to the ground know more than the people writing these rules in Washington D.C., especially when those people have never met a payroll or lived through a drought. They understand that family, congregation, and Main Street do work no federal agency can replicate.

This contract award isn't an act of compassion; it is a textbook example of regulatory capture. It suggests that the most reliable service for America’s most vulnerable children will be provided by those who have served political masters rather than the children themselves. The government cannot outsource its moral obligation to private interests whose primary loyalty is to their founders and their connections.

The system, as it stands, has failed these children. And when a nation cannot feed itself—when it cannot even guarantee due process for its most defenseless citizens—it is not sovereign. We are witnessing the predictable, cynical cycle where public trust is sold off piece by piece to the highest bidder and the deepest political pocketbook.

Trump-linked law firm to get $150 million no-bid contract to represent migrant children

The Cost of Trusting Private Interests with Public Due Process

When Political Connections Replace Due Process

A System Built on Cronyism, Not Care

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