Wire
A 7-day file deadline would change kids’ deportation cases
The proposal would force the government to hand over a child’s immigration file quickly and give at least 10 days to study it before the case can proceed. It also would formalize access to counsel inside detention, holding and border facilities.
A child facing immigration court is often asked to respond before the paperwork in front of them makes sense. In Washington, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California has introduced the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2026 to give unaccompanied children and their lawyers the immigration file, often called an A-file, within seven days of a notice to appear and at least 10 days to review it before the case moves forward.
That kind of delay can turn a legal case into a guessing game. The bill is built around the idea that when the government already has the file, the child and counsel should not have to argue in the dark.
The words on the page
The proposal would write "noncitizen" into the Immigration and Nationality Act as someone who is not a citizen or national of the United States. It would define "unaccompanied child" by pointing back to the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
It also would tell federal law, regulations and executive-branch writings to treat references to "alien" as references to "noncitizen" in this act and related materials. That sounds like a tidy language change, but in immigration law the words on the page often control how the system sees the person in front of it.
Counsel, and a second chance
For unaccompanied children, the bill goes further by giving them the privilege of being represented by counsel in removal proceedings and related matters, with counsel appointed or provided at government expense by the Department of Health and Human Services. It also would require access to counsel inside detention, holding and border facilities, and direct federal officials to develop model guidelines for representing unaccompanied children.
If a child should have had counsel and did not, the bill would create a special reopening rule. The usual deadline for asking a court to reopen the case would not apply, and the child’s removal would stay on hold while that request is pending. The aim is to make immigration court more efficient and less costly by making legal information harder to miss and harder to hide.