White House effort to change immigration rules rejected
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in Los Angeles dealt a blow to Trump administration attorneys who sought to detain immigrant children caught crossing the border illegally together with their parents indefinitely, in lieu of separating them.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued an order Monday lambasting the Justice Department for its request to modify a 1997 legal settlement that set rules for how the government can deal with immigrant children in its custody. The Justice Department previously had argued that the so-called Flores settlement made it impossible for officials to comply with an order by a federal judge in San Diego that the administration reunite children with their parents.
Last month, administration attorneys requested a hearing before Gee contending that despite the requirement under Flores that minors be released “without unnecessary delay.” The agreement in fact allowed authorities to hold the children in indefinite detention together with their parents.
Gee called the government’s request a “cynical attempt … to shift responsibility to the Judiciary for over 20 years of Congressional inaction and illconsidered Executive action that have led to the current stalemate.”
She wrote the administration was looking to work around a longestablished legal agreement rather than shift the policies that had led to the current crisis.
“Absolutely nothing prevents the [government] from reconsidering their current blanket policy of family detention and reinstating prosecutorial discretion,” she wrote.
The judge said of utmost importance was protecting the “blameless” children who are in government custody.
“They are subject to the decisions made by adults over whom they have no control,” the judge wrote.
In another ruling late Monday, a judge dismissed the federal government’s claim that U.S. law takes precedence over two California laws intended to protect immigrants in the country illegally, affirming his ruling last week that California was within its rights to pass two of its three so-called sanctuary laws.
U.S. District Judge John Mendez rejected the U.S. government’s argument on two of the laws that the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government pre-eminent power over states to regulate immigration. The Trump administration argued that California is obstructing its immigration enforcement efforts.