New Delhi, Aug. 1 -- WASHINGTON - Sometime next week, a child will stand before an immigration judge without a lawyer. That became more likely Friday when a federal contract providing legal services to roughly 24,000 unaccompanied migrant children across the United States expired without renewal, leaving approximately 100 legal aid organizations without clear funding to continue their work.

The lapse arrives at a moment of maximum exposure. The Trump administration has made mass deportation the defining mission of its immigration enforcement posture, and advocates say the contract's collapse, combined with reports that payments were already being withheld before the formal expiration, looks less like bureaucratic delay than calculated po...