The Trump administration has quietly announced that its own lawyers will represent unaccompanied migrant children in immigration court, facing off against other administration lawyers who are trying to deport the kids.

Immigration advocates are concerned that the arrangement, announced last week in the Federal Register, could pose a conflict of interest. In the past, unaccompanied minors were represented by a network of independent nonprofits, but the administration ended the contract this year after the network refused to hand over privileged information about its young clients.

“I’m concerned about the lack of independence” of these new government lawyers, says Ana Raquel Devereaux, an attorney at the nonprofit Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, part of the network that lost the contract.

The administration’s new attorneys will be housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, in a section called the Unaccompanied Alien Children Legal Representation Division. HHS did not respond to questions about when they would begin their work.

The federal rules in place to protect immigrant kids from harm and exploitation “rely on experienced legal representatives trained to work with children.”

Unaccompanied minors are granted special........

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