The House Judiciary Committee is launching a probe into a leftist group that seeks to prevent the deportation of the millions of illegal aliens allowed into the United States by the Biden administration, The Federalist has learned.
On Friday, Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter requesting information from Acacia Center for Justice (ACJ) Executive Director Shaina Aber about her organization’s efforts “to help illegal aliens remain in the United States at the expense of the American taxpayer.” As described by InfluenceWatch, the ACJ “is a left-of-center advocacy organization that provides legal advice and counsel to illegal immigrants, including those facing deportation proceedings.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration created an unprecedented border crisis and released millions of illegal aliens into the United States. Once the illegal aliens are inside the country, organizations like the Acacia Center for Justice provide them with social services and legal representation, largely funded by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Jordan wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist.
According to Jordan, the ACJ received federal dollars under a rule promulgated by the Biden-Harris Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provided funding to “legal representation for unaccompanied alien children (UACs) in both immigration-related and non immigration-related contexts.” This representation, the committee chair noted, included “assisting UACs in obtaining immigration status, employment authorization, and certain medical services that require parental permission.”
“As millions of taxpayer dollars went to organizations under this rule, the Biden-Harris Administration lost track of an estimated 150,000 UACs entrusted to the care of its Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR),” Jordan wrote.
The ACJ states on its website that “No immigrant should be detained,” and calls for the abolition of using “local law enforcement for immigration purposes.” The organization furthermore claims that America’s immigration detention and deportation system is “intentionally designed to exploit, exclude, criminalize, detain, and deport people who have historically been viewed as undeserving of inclusion in our national fabric, particularly black and brown people.”
When it comes to receiving federal dollars, the ACJ openly bragged in its 2024 “Year In Review” report about being “the primary contractor for the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP).” The group has additionally provided services to illegal aliens in a variety of matters, including legal counseling to “some detained adult aliens, UACs in immigration proceedings at certain designated immigration courts, UACs in or released from ORR,” and other circumstances, according to Jordan.
While the second Trump administration has sought to end federal contracts with the ACJ, that hasn’t stopped House Judiciary Republicans from vetting how the organization has used taxpayers’ money to advance its left-wing agenda.
Jordan noted in his letter to Aber that, “according to public information, the Acacia Center for Justice spent some portion of its budget, much of which is derived from taxpayer funding, to lobby Congress in support of programs that benefit those illegal aliens, including programs that the Acacia Center for Justice administers.”
He specifically noted how one of those entities is the Legal Access Services for Reunited Families program, which was “created by the Biden-Harris Administration [and] allows certain illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. pursuant to a grant of humanitarian parole for up to three years and apply for a work permit, as well as ‘counseling and other services,’ ‘assistance with certain medical copays,’ ‘certain immigration legal services,’ and ‘housing support.’”
As such, Jordan is demanding that Aber forfeit information and materials from Jan. 20, 2021, to the present day, such as the total amount of federal funding the group received and how much money the ACJ spent on lobbying Congress each year. He further asked that the ACJ disclose the number of cases and expenditures associated with its work on the Legal Access Services for Reunited Families program and UAC-related litigation, as well as other information.
Jordan requested that all such data and materials be provided to the Judiciary Committee “no later than” 5 p.m. on Feb. 13.
2026-01-30 JDJ to Acacia Center for Justice – Aber by The Federalist
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
