McALLEN, Texas (AP) — On Friday, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate a nearly 30-year-old policy designed to safeguard immigrant children within federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles made her decision following a hearing conducted the previous week with federal representatives and legal advocates for the children in custody.
Gee described the hearing as “déjà vu,” recalling an earlier attempt by the federal government in 2019 to end the Flores Settlement Agreement, which took place during the first Trump administration. She echoed this sentiment in her latest order.
“There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants’ motion on that basis alone,” Gee stated, referencing the government’s reliance on a legal argument that they believed prevented the court from enforcing the agreement.
In this latest effort, the government claimed they had implemented significant changes since the agreement’s inception in 1997, establishing standards and policies for the care of immigrant children that align with legislation and the agreement.
Gee recognized that some conditions of confinement had improved due to the government’s measures, stating, “These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.”
Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though Trump’s tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities.
Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. “But currently under the Flores Settlement Agreement, that’s essentially void,” he said last week.
The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of over a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s.
The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children.
The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when HHS takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.
In arguing against the Trump administration’s effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for over a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April.
The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz,” where a lawsuit alleges detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated.
Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement’s terms.
