Unaccompanied migrant children watch television inside a playpen at a US Customs and Border Protection facility in Donna, Texas, in March 2021.Dario Lopez-Mills/AP
The Trump administration filed a motion Thursday to end the decades-old legal ruling that established basic standards for the treatment and release of migrant children—a move that immigrant rights advocates say they will challenge.
The Flores Settlement Agreement, which dates back to 1997, requires the government to move migrant children from jail-like detention facilities to state-licensed, child-appropriate facilities as quickly as possible, and to ensure that children are kept in safe and sanitary facilities.
“The fact that the government refuses to be held accountable to even these most basic standards to keep children safe speaks volumes.”
The settlement agreement “provides nothing more than bare minimum protections for vulnerable children—far less than any of us would demand for our own children,” says Mishan Wroe, an immigration attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “It requires things like soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and adequate food and water. The fact that the government refuses to be held accountable to even these most basic standards to keep children safe speaks volumes.”
During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration tried, unsuccessfully, to dissolve the agreement. The government is using a similar argument now, that circumstances have changed dramatically since the agreement was established decades ago, with different immigration laws in place and far more migrant children. The government is also arguing that the district court overseeing the settlement lacks jurisdiction.
A hearing is scheduled for July 18.
Thursday’s motion was filed the same day that House Republicans passed a historic budget bill that, if signed into law, would allocate more than $160 billion in new funding for immigration and border enforcement, including $45 billion for adult and family detention.
