Two days after a group of nonprofit organizations filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block a stop-work order halting funds that provide legal information to immigrants facing deportation, President Donald Trump rescinded the order.

The lawsuit was filed by nine nonprofit organizations across the United States — including Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RIAN) based in Westminster — on Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The group also requested a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.

The Trump Administration informed the group the order had been rescinded on Sunday, allowing providers to resume services.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation for RIAN, the only Colorado organization to join the lawsuit, said Tuesday that rescinding the order doesn’t make the issue “moot.”

Moot is a legal term that refers to a case that no longer matters because it has already been resolved.

“They can do it again tomorrow,” Lunn said.

Formed in 2000, RIAN provides free legal and social services to immigrants in detention.

Rescinding the presidential order, Lunn said, does not undo any harm in the interim to immigrants who went unprepared to a bond hearing because they were not informed about their rights.

“This strips you of your liberty indefinitely,” Lunn said.

In the United States, immigrants — regardless of their legal status — have certain fundamental rights such as the right to due process, equal protection under the law and protection from unlawful search and seizure, among many others.

Unlike in criminal cases in which the government must provide an attorney if the defendant cannot afford one, immigrants have no such guarantee in immigration court.

Since the executive order was issued, RIAN has been unable to conduct group presentations at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, which has a capacity of 1,532. It was unclear at press time whether this would be resumed.

Typically, the organization reaches between 300 and 400 immigrants monthly in these group presentations, Lunn said. Now, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) restricting visits to one at a time, Lunn said her group is “maybe seeing 60 people a month.”

The sticking point in the case, Lunn said, is the motion for emergency relief, which the Trump Administration could argue is moot because of withdrawing the order.

Judge Randolph D. Moss in the D.C. District Court held a hearing Monday and will hold a status hearing next week, Lunn said.

Trump’s executive order affected at least four programs funded within the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to offer basic legal information to immigrants facing deportation.

Created in 1983, the EOIR is responsible for adjudicating immigration-related matters in the nation’s immigration courts.

Federal funding for these programs represents about 25% of RIAN’s annual budget, Lunn has said.

According to the DOJ, more than 2.4 million active cases were pending in immigration courts nationwide at the end of fiscal year 2023, marking 17 consecutive years of caseload increases.

In 2024, Congress appropriated at least $28 million for a Legal Orientation Program and Immigration Court Helpdesk, according to the complaint.

The EOIR requested $981 million for fiscal year 2025, a Congressional report shows.

According to the complaint filed Jan. 31, these programs provide “basic level” information about the due process noncitizens are entitled to in removal proceedings.

“Due process and access to legal resources in removal proceedings is particularly urgent today, as detentions and deportations are increasing exponentially,” the complaint said.

In the days after resuming office, Trump issued hundreds of executive orders from foreign aid to immigration in a strategy that has been described as “flooding the zone.”

In an order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” Trump directed the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct an audit of all federal funding contracts and grants to non-governmental organizations that support or provide services to immigrants subject to removal proceedings.

The goal of the review, the order said, is to ensure that contracts conform to laws and are “free of waste, fraud, and abuse and that they do not promote or facilitate violations of our immigration laws.”

The order also paused any funding distribution pending the results of the review. Any agreements found to be in violation of the laws or to be wasteful or fraudulent will be terminated, according to the order.

Recognizing that the “political landscape” has changed, Lunn said the court system was the “strongest mechanism” these nonprofits have to prevent the Trump administration from defunding programs.

Over the past two years, the crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico has spilled into interior states like Colorado. The state’s most populous city alone welcomed nearly 43,000 immigrants — primarily at the expense of Denver taxpayers.

But bus, plane and train tickets purchased for immigrants to travel out of state to their final destination suggest that about half have, Denver city officials have said.

The city has spent some $80 million in its response to the illegal immigration crisis.