Friday at the Hispanic National Bar Association’s 39th annual convention, Attorney General Eric Holder announced grants for “Justice AmeriCorps” to provide legal services for the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who flooded across the United States-Mexico border this summer saying, “Though these children may not have a constitutional right to a lawyer,” we have a “moral obligation,” to supply the children with counsel.
“That’s why the Justice Department began planning a legal aid program well before the recent surge of unaccompanied children,” Holder added. “Last July President Obama announced the creating of a task force.”
Justice AmeriCorps was announced in this summer as a program from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that also runs Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and the Social Innovation Fund.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN