Calif. leads effort to block move to detain migrant children longer

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a new Trump administration rule that could lead to expanded family detention and longer periods in custody for migrant children “perverse” and “unconscionable,” announcing Monday that a coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia is preparing to file a lawsuit to block it from taking effect.

Newsom and the state’s attorney general said officials from coast to coast — all Democrats — plan to file a lawsuit in Los Angeles that aims to prevent the U.S. government from overriding a federal consent decree that has set basic conditions for detaining underage migrants in the United States since 1997. A judge overseeing the decree, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, issued a ruling in 2015 that limited the amount of time children can be held to 20 days.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule Friday that would lift the 20-day cap and would expand family detention, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to deter migration to the United States amid record surges of Central American families seeking to cross the southern border.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee must review the rule, which is set to take effect in 60 days. Gee denied the Trump administration’s request to expand the allowable duration for family detention last year. The new lawsuit would join an existing claim that led to the original Flores agreement. Lawyers in that case have said they, too, will challenge the rule soon.