Judge to consider the fate of an agreement on protecting immigrant children in US custody

A federal judge on Friday will hear a Trump administration request to end a nearly three-decade-old policy on ensuring safe conditions for immigrant children held in federal custody.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles will hold a hearing to consider dissolving a policy that limits how long Customs and Border Protection can hold immigrant children and that requires them to be kept in safe and sanitary conditions. The policy also allows third-party inspections of CBP facilities that hold immigrant children to ensure compliance.

Advocates for immigrant children have asked the judge to keep the protections and oversight in place and have submitted firsthand accounts from immigrants in family detention who described adults fighting children for clean water, despondent toddlers and a child with swollen feet who was denied a medical exam.

In its motion, President Donald Trump’s administration said the government has made substantial changes since the Flores agreement was formalized in 1997. The government said it has created standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement.

Conditions for immigrant children who enter the U.S. without a parent "have substantially improved from those that precipitated this suit four decades ago,” the government wrote in its motion.

The agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, governs the conditions for all immigrant children in U.S. custody, including those traveling alone or with their parents. It also limits how long CBP can detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children.

The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when HHS takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.

Advocates for the children say the government is holding children beyond the time limits set out in the agreement. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours and that 14 children, including toddlers, were held for over 20 days in April. As part of their court filings, they included testimony from several families who were held in family detention centers in Texas.

If the judge terminates the settlement, the detention centers would be closed to third-party inspections.

The federal government is looking to expand its 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.