LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Friday approved the Biden administration’s request to partially end a nearly three-decade-old agreement to maintain court oversight of the government’s care for migrant children in its custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee has ruled that the court’s special oversight of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of migrant children after they have been in Border Patrol custody for up to 72 hours, can end. They are placed in a vast network of holding facilities and generally released to immediate family members.
The Justice Department argued that the new safeguards, which take effect Monday, meet and in some ways exceed the standards set out in the court settlement. The judge largely agreed, making exceptions for certain types of services for children with more acute needs.
Child migrant advocates vigorously opposed the administration’s request, arguing that the federal government has failed to develop a regulatory framework in states like Texas and Florida that would revoke licenses for facilities that hold child migrants, or that it could do so in the future. The judge dismissed those concerns, saying the new regulations are sufficient to replace court oversight of these unlicensed facilities.
The Flores settlement agreement, named for Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old immigrant from El Salvador, is a cornerstone of the policy that emerged from widespread allegations of abuse in the 1980s. It requires the U.S. to quickly release children in custody to family members inside the country and sets standards for accredited shelters, including for food, drinking water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature controls and ventilation.
The judge’s decision came three days before the Department of Health and Human Services is set to begin issuing regulations that, according to Secretary Xavier Becerra, “will set clear standards for the care and treatment of unaccompanied (migrant) children.”
The new HHS regulations will create an independent ombudsman office, establish minimum standards for temporary shelters, and formalize advances in screening protocols for releasing children to families and sponsors and for legal services.
Of the 13,093 beds operated by the department, 7,317 of them — more than half — are in Texas, according to the ruling. The judge rejected the prosecutor’s suggestion to stop housing children in Texas and Florida, calling it “not only impractical, but also potentially harmful to unaccompanied migrant children, to no longer operate facilities in these border states.”
However, in her ruling, the judge upheld the ability of child migrant lawyers to access information about children held in the Department of Health and Human Services’ detention centres and to meet with them.
The administration did not want to remove court oversight of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s border patrol posts.
