A FEDERAL judge ruled on Friday, July 24, that hundreds of immigrant women and children held in detention facilities in the US should be released.
US District Judge Dolly Gee said federal authorities had violated key provisions of a 1997 court settlement that put restrictions on the detention of migrant children. The federal judge found the children’s imprisonment “deplorable” and in grave violation of the earlier settlement.
The ruling is another blow to President Barack Obama’s immigration policies, and leaves questions about what the US government will do with the large number of children and parents who crossed the border in 2014.
The White House administration is detaining an estimated 1,700 parents and children at three detention facilities — two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania.
In her 25-page ruling, Judge Gee blasted federal officials, saying that children had been held in substandard conditions at the two Texas detention centers. She found “widespread and deplorable conditions in the holding cells of Border Patrol stations.”
In addition, the judge wrote that federal officials “failed to meet even the minimal standard of sage and sanitary conditions” at the temporary holding cells.
“It is astonishing that defendants have enacted a policy requiring such expensive infrastructure without more evidence to show that it would be complaint with an agreement that has been in effect for nearly 20 years,” Gee wrote.
She gave the government until August 3 to explain why an order she plans to issue releasing the incarcerated immigrants should not be implemented within 90 days.
The judge also signaled that she planned to enter a nationwide injunction requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to come into compliance with a 1997 settlement—known as Flores vs. Meese—that set specific legal requirements for housing immigrant children.
DHS plans to respond to the court’s ruling by the Aug. 3 deadline, Gee said, though it is unclear whether the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will appeal the ruling.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are reviewing it in consultation with the Department of Justice,” said Marsha L. Catron, press secretary for the DHS, in a statement.
In 2014, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered that immigration authorities dramatically expand the number of detention beds for families, and announced that if people came into the US illegally, they would be apprehended and sent home. In addition, detained individuals are placed in an accelerated docket in courts and can be deported more quickly.
More than 68,000 people were apprehended along the US border during the 2014 fiscal year.
Initially, many immigrants were released with orders to appear at offices throughout the country because appropriate facilities to hold families were not yet available. Then, the Obama administration opened up new detention centers to house undocumented mothers and children.
Immigration rights activists and attorneys applauded Judge Gee’s ruling, and many said work still needed to be done to extend beyond those still incarcerated.
“Given the court’s ruling that family detention is unlawful, all of the mothers and children who were removed as a result of family detention should be immediately allowed back into the United States to apply for asylum or special immigrant juvenile status,” said Bryan Johnson, an immigration attorney in New York.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federal for American Immigration Reform opposed to illegal immigration, said Gee’s decision sends “a dangerous message.”
“The number of kids that are going to be enticed from this ruling to come from Central America and risk their lives and subject themselves to injury or rape to cross Mexico is going to rise,” Mehlman said, while pointing out the dangers of crossing the Southwest border illegally, including severe poverty and gang violence.
Last summer, the Obama administration expanded detention centers for families, and the backlogged court system became even more bogged down. While some have been deported and others released, many mothers and children are still being held at two Texas facilities—one in Dilley, another in Karnes City, both run by private companies under contract with ICE. The third facility, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is run by the county.
Flores vs. Meese requires the US to release immigrant children or house them in the “least restrictive environment.” A juvenile immigrant cannot be detained for more than an estimated 72 hours, unless they are a significant flight risk or a danger to themselves or others. The children must also be released to a parent or legal guardian.
One of the arguments federal officials made was that the settlement did not apply to children who are accompanied by parents, but Judge Gee disagreed.
In April, she issued a preliminary ruling, signaling that she would find in favor of the plaintiffs that it was “inappropriate to hold a parent and child unless there was a flight or safety risk.”
Gee asked both sides of the case to negotiate a revised agreement before her final ruling. After six weeks of negotiations, both sides failed to reach an agreement.
“[The ruling] would encourage the Obama administration to separate parents and children, turning them into de facto unaccompanied children,” warned Leon Fresco, a deputy assistant attorney general.
Peter Schey and Carlos Holguin, who launched the lawsuit against federal officials and have served as court-appointed lawyers for all juvenile immigrants in federal custody since the 1997 settlement, said the ruling “marks the beginning of the end of family detention.”
“We’re hopeful this decision will be among the final straws ending a misguided, mindless policy of incarcerating women and children in violation of the Flores settlement, international law and all of what most of us hold decent,” Holguin said.
Gee’s ruling comes about a month after federal officials announced a new policy that would allow hundreds of incarcerated immigrant women and children to be released on bond, should they be able to prove they were eligible for asylum or other type of immigration relief.
Meanwhile, immigration rights activists continue to argue that mothers and children should not be held in detention facilities period. (With reports from Los Angeles Times)
