Humane ruling

A judge orders civility for immigrant children

Afederal judge in California has told the U.S. government it cannot detain immigrant families indefinitely in punishing conditions and that it must justify its callous policy before Aug. 3, or else release them.

The Department of Homeland Security defends the practice as necessary as it seeks to stem a flood of illegal immigrants from Central America. But to hold mothers seeking asylum and their minor children in prison-like facilities violates both an 18-year-old court order and basic propriety. The government will be hardpressed to find an explanation that passes muster, both before the U.S. District Court and the court of public opinion.

Judge Dolly M. Gee ruled Friday that children caught crossing the Mexican border with their mother are entitled to the same treatment mandated in a 1997 order governing unaccompanied children. That decision mandated that children be kept in centers that are more like childcare facilities than jails, and that they be managed by licensed providers.

Instead, more than 1,700 mothers and their minor children have been detained in secured centers run by prison contractors and, immediately after their capture, they have been held at border patrol stations with deplorable conditions, sometimes without adequate toilet facilities or beds. Moreover, although the 1997 order allowed children to be released into the custody of another family member, the government has not investigated options for their release.

Seen alongside other cases in which the government has taken an unnecessarily ham-fisted approach — in one case, attempting to deport the 1-year-old son of a Honduran mother who had been granted asylum — Secretary Jeh Johnson and his Department of Homeland Security seem not so much enforcers but bullies. Such harsh treatment of mothers and children should be abhorrent even to those who urge strict enforcement of immigration law.