LOS ANGELES – For 27 years, federal courts exercised special oversight over the custody conditions of migrant children. The Biden administration wants a judge to partially strip away those powers.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee is considering the request at a hearing that began in Los Angeles on Friday, just a week before new safeguards take effect that the government says meet, and in some respects exceed, the standards set out in a historic agreement named in Jenny’s honor. Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old immigrant from El Salvador.
The administration want to close the Flores agreement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of Border Patrol detention. It would remain in effect at the Border Patrol and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Flowers is a cornerstone of politics which forced the US to quickly release children in custody to families in the country and to establish standards in licensed shelters, including food, drinking water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, bathrooms, lavatories, temperature control and ventilation. It arose from widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s.
Court oversight gives advocates representing migrant children broad authority to visit custodial facilities and conduct interviews with staff and other migrants. They can file complaints with Gee, who can request changes.
Advocates for migrant children strongly oppose the move to roll back judicial oversight, arguing, in part, that the federal government has failed to develop a regulatory framework in states that have revoked licenses of facilities that care for migrant children or that may do so. in the future.
Texas and Florida — led by Republican governors who are critical of unprecedented migration flows — revoked permits in 2021, leaving what advocates describe as a void in oversight that endangers children’s safety.
The Justice Department argues that new safeguards taking effect July 1 will make Flores unnecessary in Health and Human Services facilities. It says HHS will require shelters to comply with state licensing standards, even if they are not licensed, and will increase site visits in those states to ensure they comply.
Maintaining judicial oversight of the Department of Homeland Security would keep critical parts of Flores intact, including a 20-day limit on the detention of unaccompanied children and parents traveling with children. Border Patrol detention facilities have experienced extreme overcrowding as recently as 2021.
When Flores took effect in 1997, the care of migrant children was under the full purview 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 divide became a nightmare in 2018 when the Trump administration separated thousands of children of their parents at the border and the two departments’ computers were not properly connected to quickly bring them together.
In 2014, a surge of unaccompanied children at the border increased federal government scrutiny. Since then, arrests of children traveling alone at the Mexican border have increased and, last year, exceeded 130,000. Health and Human Services releases the vast majority of unaccompanied children to close family members while immigration judges assess their futures.
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