LOS ANGELES — For 27 years, federal courts have specifically overseen custody conditions for child migrants. The Biden administration wants a judge to partially remove these powers.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee will consider the request Friday at a hearing in Los Angeles, just a week before new safeguards take effect that the administration says meet, and in some ways exceed, the standards set in a historic settlement called Jenny Flores. a child immigrant from El Salvador.
The administration wants to end the Flores Agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which seizes custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of arrest by Border Patrol. It would remain in effect at the Border Patrol and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Flores does a policy cornerstone, which will force the U.S. to quickly release children in custody to relatives in the country and set standards at licensed shelters, including for food, drinking water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It stemmed from widespread allegations of abuse in the 1980s.
The court’s oversight gives attorneys representing migrant minors broad authority to visit detention centers and conduct interviews with staff and other migrants. They can register complaints with Gee, who can make changes.
Advocates for child migrants are strongly opposing the move to roll back court oversight, arguing in part that the federal government has failed to develop a regulatory framework in states that have revoked permits for facilities that care for child migrants, or could do that in the future.
Texas and Florida — led by Republican governors critical of unprecedented migration flows — revoked permits in 2021, leaving what advocates describe as an oversight gap that puts children’s safety at risk.
The Justice Department argues that new safeguards taking effect July 1 will make Flores obsolete in health and humanitarian services. It says HHS will require shelters to adhere to state licensing standards even if they are not licensed, and will increase the number of on-site visits in those states to ensure they comply.
Judicial oversight of the Department of Homeland Security would leave crucial parts of Flores intact, including a 20-day limit on detaining unaccompanied children and parents traveling with a child. Border Police holding facilities have experienced extreme overpopulation not until 2021.
When Flores took effect in 1997, the care of child migrants fell entirely under the domain of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was disbanded six years later with the creation of Homeland Security. Since 2003, Health and Human Services has taken custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of arrest.
The split became a nightmare in 2018 when the Trump administration came to power thousands of children separated of their parents at the border and the computers for the two departments were not properly linked to quickly reunite them.
In 2014, a surge of unaccompanied children at the border led to heightened scrutiny by the federal government. Since then, the number of arrests of unaccompanied children at the Mexican border has increased, reaching more than 130,000 last year. Health and Human Services releases the vast majority of unaccompanied children to immediate family members while immigration judges assess their futures.