Trump administration seeks to end protections for immigrant children in federal custody

McALLEN, Texas — The Trump administration is seeking to end an immigration policy cornerstone that since the 1990s has offered protections to child migrants in federal custody, a move that will be challenged by advocates, according to a court filing Thursday.

The protections in place, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, largely limit to 72 hours the amount of time that child migrants traveling alone or with family and detained by the U.S. Border Patrol. They also ensure the children are kept in safe and sanitary conditions.

Government attorneys called the Flores agreement an ''intrusive regime'' that has ''ossified'' federal immigration policy. In a motion filed Thursday afternoon, they contend that the agreement is no longer necessary after Congress passed legislation and government agencies enforced policies that also implement standards and regulations called for in the agreement.

They also blamed the agreement for increasing the number of migrant children entering the country over the past three decades.

''The FSA itself has changed the immigration landscape by removing some of the disincentives for families to enter the U.S. unlawfully. Unlawful family migration barely existed in 1997,'' they wrote.

President Donald Trump tried to end the protections during his first term and his allies have long railed against it. A separate court filing, submitted jointly by the administration and advocates, proposes a hearing on July 18 before Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California.

''Children who seek refuge in our country should be met with open arms — not imprisonment, deprivation, and abuse,'' said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

''The Trump Administration's move to dismiss this agreement, which prevents the government from imprisoning children in brutal conditions indefinitely, is another lawless step towards sacrificing accountability and human decency in favor of a political agenda that demonizes refugees,'' Perez said.

The settlement is named for a Salvadoran girl, Jenny Flores, whose lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s prompted special oversight.

In August 2019, the first Trump administration asked a judge to dissolve the agreement. Its motion eventually was struck down in December 2020 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under the Biden administration, oversight protections for child migrants were lifted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after new guidelines were put in place last year.

The Department of Homeland Security is still beholden to the agreement, including Customs and Border Protection, which detains and processes children after their arrival in the U.S. with or without their parents. Children then are usually released with their families or sent to a shelter operated by HHS, though processing times often go up when the number of people entering increases in a short time period.

Even with the agreement in place, there have been instances where the federal government failed to provide adequate conditions for children, as in a case in Texas where nearly 300 children had to be moved from a Border Patrol facility following reports they were receiving inadequate food, water and sanitation.

''I've spent years fighting for children in government custody because I've seen the toll detention takes on them — sleepless nights on cold concrete floors with bright lights and no blanket, days or weeks without seeing the sun, untreated illness and injuries, and the unbearable trauma of being separated from siblings, parents or grandparents,'' Leecia Welch, the deputy legal director at Children's Rights, said Thursday.

Court-appointed monitors provide oversight of the agreement and report noncompliant facilities to Gee. In 2020, a monitor called on the government to stop detaining children as young as a year old in hotels before expelling them to their home countries. Other monitors also found children were held in conditions that exposed them to the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic.

CBP was set to resume its own oversight but in January a federal judge ruled it was not ready and extended the use of court-appointed monitors for another 18 months.