Families could be held longer

WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday moved to abandon a longstanding court settlement that limits how long immigrant children can be kept locked up, proposing new regulations that would allow the government to detain families until their immigration cases are decided.

Homeland Security officials said ending the so-called Flores agreement of 1997 will speed up the handling of asylum requests while also deterring people from illegally crossing the Mexican border.

The move angered immigrant rights advocates and is likely to trigger a court battle.

“It is sickening to see the United States government looking for ways to jail more children for longer,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “And it’s yet another example of the Trump administration’s hostility toward immigrants resulting in a policy incompatible with the most basic human values.”

The Flores agreement requires the government to keep children in the least restrictive setting possible and to release them generally after 20 days in detention. For decades, because of those restrictions, many parents and children caught trying to slip into the country have been released into the U.S. while their asylum requests wind through the courts — a practice President Donald Trump has decried as “catch-and-release.”

Such cases can drag on for years, and some stop showing up to court when it becomes clear their asylum requests are going to be denied.