Judge weighs Trump administration’s request to end protections for immigrant children

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A judge on Friday was considering a Trump administration request to end a decades-old policy on protections for immigrant children in federal custody that the government says is inhibiting its immigration crackdown.

The administration asked U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles during a hearing to dissolve the policy, which limits how long Customs and Border Protection can hold immigrant children and requires them to be kept in safe and sanitary conditions.

Gee, who oversees what is known as the Flores agreement, expressed skepticism at the government’s request but did not immediately issue a ruling. It was not clear how soon she will rule.

The judge pressed government attorney Joshua McCroskey on why President Donald Trump’s administration was holding children at the border for longer than the 72 hours laid out in the agreement when border arrests have reached record lows. She said it seems like conditions should be improving but they “are deteriorating.”

“It seems counterintuitive that should happen unless it’s willful,” said Gee, who was nominated to the court by President Barack Obama.

McCroskey said some children are being held for longer because Trump as part of his crackdown ended the Biden administration’s policy that allowed expedited releases of immigrants. McCroskey also pointed to logistical challenges that resulted from the closure of temporary facilities that were set up under President Joe Biden to handle an influx of immigrants.

In May, CBP held 46 children over a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April.

Advocates for immigrant children asked the judge to keep protections and oversight in place and submitted accounts from immigrants in Texas family detention centers who described adults fighting children for clean water, despondent toddlers and a child with swollen feet who was denied a medical exam. The advocates also want the judge to expand independent monitoring.

“I have met children who have spent days in jail cells with barely more than ramen noodles to eat, lights on day and night, no sunlight or access to the outside world and the indignity of using the restroom in front of guards. On top of that trauma — then to be flown to family detention and locked up with no end in sight? It is truly shameful,” Leecia Welch, the deputy legal director at Children’s Rights, said in an interview after the hearing.

The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of over a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of immigrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s. It governs the conditions for all immigrant children in U.S. custody, including those traveling alone or with their parents.

In its written motion, the Trump administration said the government has made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement.

The administration is looking to expand immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where a lawsuit alleges detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated. In court, an attorney for the government, Tiberius Davis, acknowledged that the agreement hampers the administration’s efforts, even though Trump’s tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities.

Davis said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. “But currently under the Flores settlement agreement, that’s essentially void,” he said.

The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when the children are transferred from CPB custody to the Department of Health and Human Services. But she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.