Move to hold migrants longer
Critics say White House wants to be able to detain parents and children entering US
The Trump Administration is moving to terminate a federal court settlement restricting how long US officials can detain migrant children with their parents and replace it with a rule that could expand family detention and dramatically increase the time children spend in custody.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services will issue a rule tomorrow to withdraw from the Flores Settlement Agreement, the
federal consent decree that has set basic standards for the detention of migrant children and teenagers by the United States since 1997.
The new rule is not yet public and must be approved by a federal judge, who declined the Government’s request last year to expand detentions.
Homeland Security Department officials said the rule would eliminate a 20-day cap for detaining migrant children and create a new license regime that would make it easier for federal officials to expand family detention nationwide.
Officials said they do not expect to hold families for more than two months — though the rule grants them the flexibility to hold families much longer. Officials said they hoped the threat of detention would send a powerful message to smugglers that bringing children to the US border would no longer guarantee a family’s release into the country.
President Donald Trump said yesterday that ending the Flores settlement, together with increased enforcement in Mexico and construction of a border wall, “all comes together like a beautiful puzzle”.
“One of the things that is happening, when they see you can’t get into the United States — or when they see if they do get into the United States they will be brought back to their country — they won’t come,” Trump said. “And many people will be saved.”
Although the rule is to take effect 60 days after it is published, officials said the process could take much longer because US District Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the settlement, must review it.
Lawyers for migrant children said they would oppose the rule change.
Carlos Holguin, one of the lead lawyers in the Flores lawsuit, said the regulations must match the spirit of the settlement and that holding children indefinitely in unlicensed facilities would not.
“We don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this administration wants to get rid of the Flores settlement precisely because the Flores settlement doesn’t allow it to do what it wants to do, which is to detain parents and children,” Holguin said.
Exercising greater control over family detention would be a major victory for the White House, which has said the Flores agreement is among the most significant “loopholes” spurring mass migration.
The White House maintains that smugglers are driving the record influx of Central American families by selling parents discounted trips to the US border with Mexico and telling them to bring their children because the 20-day limit means they are likely to be released. Most are released to await hearings in the backlogged immigration courts, and they are rarely deported.