ORR announces a $150M single-source award to Burke Law Group

On 2026-08-06, at 91 FR 50848, ORR published its intent to award a single-source cooperative agreement of up to $150,000,000 to Burke Law Group, PLLC of Houston — “legal orientation, legal consultation, and attorney-of-record representation” for unaccompanied children before EOIR and USCIS, plus discharge-related continuity planning. Proposed performance period: 2026-08-15 → 2027-08-14. Signed by Dawnisha Helland, Assistant Principal Deputy Director of the UAC Bureau. The notice had been filed two days earlier, 2026-08-04 at 4:15pm.

The authority paragraph

The notice states the services are required under 8 U.S.C. 1232(c)(5), 45 CFR 410.1309(a), “and the preliminary injunction in Community Legal Services In East Palo Alto, et. al. v. HHS, et. al., No. 4:25-cv-02847 (N.D. Cal.).”

ORR is naming, in its own Federal Register notice, the federal injunction it is under as the reason it is buying these services. This is not discretionary program spending; it is the government’s chosen means of complying with a court order and the anti-trafficking statute (TVPRA, 8 U.S.C. 1232(c)(4)–(c)(5)) that compels it to secure counsel for these children. See clsepa-v-hhs-4-25-cv-02847-nd-cal-uac-counsel-injunction.

The recipient

Burke Law Group was founded in February 2023 and describes itself as advising “companies on complex environmental, regulatory, and enforcement matters.” Founder Marcella Burke is a Chambers-ranked environmental lawyer, EPA Deputy General Counsel (2017–2018) and Interior Deputy Solicitor for Energy and Natural Resources (2018–2020) in the first Trump administration, a Don Willett clerk, and a 2023 Abbott appointee to the Texas School Land Board. Her listed practice areas on the firm’s own site are administrative, commercial litigation, crisis management, energy, EHS, and government affairs — immigration is not among them.

The roster also includes Ilya Shapiro as senior counsel and Justin Shubow, a former Trump appointee to the Commission of Fine Arts. Of fewer than 30 lawyers, two listed relevant immigration experience — and NOTUS reported those two profiles were updated to add “immigration and asylum” only after media coverage began.

Against that bench: roughly 1,800 children in ORR shelters and about 22,000 facing deportation while living with sponsors.

Timing

Acacia Center for Justice’s UAC legal-services bridge — funding a network of nearly 100 providers — had ended six days earlier, on 2026-07-31. The notice describes the award as “complementing existing ORR-funded legal services” and addressing “identified gaps.” The gap was the one ORR had just created.

The next day, 2026-08-07, ORR signed a separate non-competed contract worth up to $244,034,658 with Our Rescue under FAR 6.302-2 urgency authority. See 2026-08-07–our-rescue-tim-ballard-244m-migrant-children-legal-contract. Two single-source awards in four days, up to $308M combined, to two entities with no relevant federal track record, replacing a defunded ~100-provider network.

Burke withdrew itself from consideration five days later. See 2026-08-17–burke-law-group-withdraws-150m-orr-single-source-uac-legal-award.