With utilities scheduled to be turned off at the Alliance Bank Center in downtown St. Paul on Tuesday, a former commercial tenant has found a new home in the suburbs, just north of the capital city.

Allegra Marketing Print Mail and Image360, which had been situated at three different locations within the Alliance Bank Center across 18 years, opened Monday at 2043 County Road E., just off White Bear Avenue in White Bear Lake. Longtime franchise owner Jim Flaherty said with the help of his printing partners, business has continued uninterrupted, even during a surprise relocation that came together in weeks.

“We were wheeling in our big presses while they were gluing down the carpet on Friday afternoon,” said Flaherty, who is leasing 5,000 square feet of strip mall space from Jim Kelly of Kelly Bros. “We’re operational enough to actually conduct commerce right now.”

“It will be all day tomorrow too — moving, more moving,” said Flaherty on Monday. “All the supplies — 18 years, it’s not an easy move.”

Utilities to be cut

On March 10, tenants of the Alliance Bank Center received an unexpected notice from property owner Madison Equities to vacate the building immediately as it would soon be losing its utilities, the latest setback for what had been downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner. City officials confirmed electricity was scheduled to be cut on March 12, but the mayor’s office negotiated with Xcel Energy and District Energy to extend the timeframe to April 1.

That left tenants with about three weeks to find new spaces, negotiate new leases and relocate offices and retail equipment, from computers and filing cabinets to pizza ovens, jewelry vaults and in Flaherty’s case, printing presses.

“I own a signage company but I haven’t had time to make my own signage, not even a banner,” Flaherty said. “We’ve just been mad scrambling.”

Flaherty said the new location, within a strip mall containing an auto parts store and a driving school, has ample parking and will be a safer and more seemly destination for customers, though many accounts are now virtual.

Alliance Bank Center “is just a disaster of a building right now,” Flaherty said. “It kept getting worse and worse, especially these last seventh months. You’ve got the light rail hub right there, which hasn’t been the safest place.”

The franchise serves both walk-in and national accounts like Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bagels, offering printing, marketing consultation, graphic design and copywriting, among other services.

“It’s not crucial anymore to have that walk-up business, and we certainly didn’t have it for the last several months with the (Alliance Bank Center) building being on lockdown,” Flaherty said. “A lot of what we have are national accounts. … Those guys don’t mind where we are.”

Some tenants find new digs fast

Several other skyway tenants that offer walk-up retail — including Paul A. Hartquist Jewelers, Skyway Mart, Pino’s Pizzeria and Greenwolf Hemp and Organics — plan to reopen within the skyway in the Town Square building at 444 Cedar St.

Alliance Bank left the building about nine months ago, relocating three blocks away to Wells Fargo Place at 30 East Seventh St. Around the same time, the accounting firm Redpath and Company relocated to the Securian Center building on Robert Street.

Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services — the Alliance Bank Center’s largest remaining office tenant as of March — was still packing up two floors of office space last week, including some 60 staff members, many of them attorneys and paralegals. Some staff will use a smaller satellite office at University Avenue and Syndicate Street, but others will work from home until the firm, which offers free legal representation in civil cases to those in need, finds a new home.

As of late last week, the ice cream and sandwich stand Rico’s on Wabasha also was looking for a new location.

On March 14, the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections announced that the Alliance Bank Center skyway will close at 9 p.m. on weekdays and remain closed on weekends. With Madison Equities no longer supporting electricity, trash pick-up or security, it’s unclear what building access will look like moving forward.

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CHICAGO — There was little doubt, after the early innings of Monday’s game, who would be walking away victorious. Things got so out of hand, so early, that manager Rocco Baldelli pulled stars Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton after just three innings.

The only remaining intrigue in the later innings was whether the Chicago White Sox, led by journeyman starter Martín Pérez, would be able to pull off a combined no-hitter. Willi Castro ensured that wouldn’t happen, lining a single off rookie Mike Vasil to right field with two outs in the seventh inning.

But that did little to ease the sting of a 9-0 smackdown from the White Sox, expected to be, again, one of the worst teams in the major leagues this season, at Rate Field on Monday afternoon in the opener of a three-game series in Chicago.

Pérez threw six no-hit innings in his start. It wasn’t until the fourth that he allowed a baserunner, walking Ryan Jeffers with two outs. He struck out nine, matching his career high and left with his pitch count at 93, making way for Vasil, who was making his major league debut.

Castro’s single off Vasil, and a little squibber down the third base line from Jeffers that just stayed fair, were the only two hits for the Twins, whose offense has scored a combined six runs in four games.

A quiet day for the offense was combined with an ugly Chris Paddack start made for a lopsided loss.
Paddack, who hadn’t pitched in a game since July 14 because of an injury last season, allowed all nine White Sox runs — and all in the first three innings.

The starter gave up a three-run home run in the first inning and another in the second, marking the second consecutive day that a Twins starter had given up a pair of three-run blasts. Paddack allowed a third home run — a two-run blast to former Twin Michael A. Taylor — in the third inning.

He pitched into the fourth before an early hook.

The loss is the Twins’ fourth this season in as many games, and second that became noncompetitive early.

Andrew Benintendi #23 of the Chicago White Sox hits a three-run home run during the second inning against the Minnesota Twins at Rate Field on March 31, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. It was Benintendi’s 100th career home run. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)
Chicago White Sox first baseman Andrew Vaughn celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a three-run home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins in Chicago, Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Minnesota Twins’ Ty France throws his bat after being called out on strikes during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago, Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

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While New York-based organizations have not stopped representing the unaccompanied minors they already work with, they’re not sure how long they’ll be able to do so without funding.

A U.S. Border Patrol processing facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children in Texas in 2021. (Jaime Rodriguez Sr./Customs and Border Patrol)

Recently, a 5-year-old migrant crossed the border and was placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the federal agency responsible for unaccompanied minors. 

The child, who crossed without a parent or legal guardian, was released to a sponsor in New York and obtained court representation through Church World Service, one of nine organizations providing legal services to immigrant youth through federal funding. 

The group’s government contract, however, was cancelled two weeks ago.

On March 21, the Trump administration instructed providers around the country to immediately cease services to more than 25,000 minors after it failed to renew over $200 million in federal grants, which expired on March 29. This was the Trump administration’s second attempt at defunding those services: In February, the federal government issued a stop-work order to halt legal aid for unaccompanied minors, but rescinded it a few days later.

ORR is a program office of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency in charge of migrant children’s care, and which oversees the contract. 

An ACF spokesperson said that ORR “continues to meet the legal requirements established by” the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which established the Department of Homeland Security, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), which increased protections for victims and required screening of unaccompanied children for potential trafficking.

However, advocates say the end of the contract eliminates almost all of their services with unaccompanied children, and dismantles infrastructure and expertise built over decades. Since the news broke on March 21, providers and advocates have sounded the alarm, saying that infants, toddlers, and teenagers without lawyers are far more likely to be detained and deported.

The Acacia Center for Justice, which runs the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP) through a network of organizations, said the latest order amounts to a near-total termination of services, including full legal representation, legal screenings, Spanish translation and interpretation, as well as reporting and other support.

“The only work that is allowed to continue is ‘know your rights’ presentations for young children because that is mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act,” said Madison Allman, Acacia’s communications manager, via email.

In New York alone, approximately 7,700 minors were served by the UCP in fiscal year 2024, said Sierra Kraft, executive director of the ICARE Coalition, an organization advocating to expand access to legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children in New York City.

UCP has about 1,800 open cases in New York State funded by the contract, most of them now at risk of losing representation. The termination directly impacts 191 staff members across nine legal service providers in New York, Kraft explained.

City Limits reached out to all providers in the state to ask about the impact of the cuts, and while organizations have not stopped representing the minors they already work with, they’re unsure of how long they can continue to do so without funding.

While attorneys have ethical obligations to the children they already represent and cannot withdraw from a case without a judge’s permission, the funding loss puts them in a tough position.

“The lawyers will face a series of increasingly difficult questions: how long can they afford to represent the kids for free? How will they balance their ethical duties to vulnerable children? They will risk their licenses if they fail to continue representing their child client’s interests without finding someone else who can represent them,” Allman explained. “They are now caught in an impossible situation that is entirely manufactured by this administration.”

Providers like the Empire Justice Center have already issued 30-day layoff notices to attorneys on contract, said Kristin Brown, president and CEO of the Empire Justice Center, a nonprofit that provides legal services to minors in ORR shelters or released to sponsors, or who have no family members in the country and are living in foster care.

Empire Justice Center’s Senior Attorney Robert Cisneros said the organization is currently representing between 290 and 310 cases of minors in removal proceedings before the immigration courts in New York’s lower Hudson Valley.

Unlike criminal cases, legal counsel is not guaranteed in immigration court. Attorneys said that despite being eligible for protections under U.S. law, unaccompanied minors are more likely to be deported without access to legal counsel.

According to Acacia, unaccompanied minors are seven times more likely to receive a favorable outcome in immigration court if they have a lawyer representing them.

These attorneys represent a range of cases, from the trauma and abuse of children to survivors of human trafficking. Just before the order, Cisneros said, they took a case of a teenager trafficked to the U.S. who’s now facing removal proceedings in New York.

“The government still tries to remove them,” Cisneros said. “They still try to deport them, so they still have to go to immigration court.”

Another organization providing legal services, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, has 265 cases involving unaccompanied minors in the Albany area.

“A large percentage of these minors are eligible and will receive legal status if they have an attorney who can help them negotiate the complex immigration court system,” said Jim Milstein, the organization’s Immigration Project director.

Another direct effect of the cut is that organizations can’t take on more cases. Right before a call with City Limits, Milstein was on the phone with a minor seeking help. “We haven’t officially accepted his representation, but I think we’re going to try and figure out how to do it,” he said.

And need is present throughout the state. Even before the contract was terminated, many providers were already at capacity. Attorneys at the Empire Justice Center said they are not taking any more cases, even though they have been contacted with more.

All providers who spoke with City Limits said they are urgently seeking funding sources to maintain these services. Safe Passage Project, for example, is also mobilizing pro bono attorneys to help bridge the representation gap, while other providers are working to transfer cases to other organizations with funded programs.

Providers also said they are seeking emergency funding and working with Congress, the Senate, and state and local lawmakers to try to fill the gap, but there are no concrete results to show yet.

State lawmakers have introduced two bills to fund legal representation in New York through the Access to Representation Act, which would provide attorneys to those who can’t afford it while facing deportation, and the Building Up Immigrant Legal Defense, which would create multi-year funding for immigration legal service providers. 

According to a recent Acacia poll, 61 percent of American adults felt that children facing the immigration system without a parent or guardian should be guaranteed access to legal support and services.

“The Unaccompanied Children Program is not just a lifeline—it is a moral obligation to protect immigrant children. Without this program, these children are left defenseless, jeopardizing their safety, well-being and future,” said Angela Fernández, executive director of Safe Passage Project, via email.

“We urge leaders and officials to take immediate action and reinstate the Unaccompanied Children Program to ensure that every child has the opportunity to be heard, supported, and safeguarded in their journey toward a better future,” Fernández added.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘An Impossible Situation’: NY Providers Scramble After Trump Cuts Legal Aid For Unaccompanied Minors appeared first on City Limits.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harvard University has become the latest target in the Trump administration’s approach to fight campus antisemitism, with the announcement of a new “comprehensive review” that could jeopardize billions of dollars for the Ivy League college.

A federal antisemitism task force is reviewing more than $255 million in contracts between Harvard and the federal government to make sure the school is following civil rights laws, the administration announced Monday. The government also will examine $8.7 billion in grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates.

The same task force cut $400 million from Columbia University and threatened to slash billions more if it refused a list of demands from President Donald Trump’s administration. Columbia agreed to many of the changes this month, drawing praise from some Jewish groups and condemnation from free speech groups, who see it as a stunning intrusion by the federal government.

Dozens of other universities have been put on notice by the Trump administration that they could face similar treatment over allegations of antisemitism. The federal government is a major provider of revenue for American universities through grants for scientific research.

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Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Harvard symbolizes the American Dream but has jeopardized its reputation by “promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry.”

“Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus,” McMahon said in a statement.

The announcement didn’t say whether the government had made any specific demands of Harvard. The Education Department, the Health and Human Services Department and the U.S. General Services Administration are leading the review.

The review will determine whether orders to halt work should be issued for certain contracts between Harvard and the federal government, the government said. The task force is also ordering Harvard to submit a list of all contracts with the federal government, both directly with the school or through any of its affiliates.

“The Task Force will continue its efforts to root out anti-Semitism and to refocus our institutions of higher learning on the core values that undergird a liberal education,” said Sean Keveney, acting general counsel for Health and Human Services. “We are pleased that Harvard is willing to engage with us on these goals.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.